Deuteronomy 10:12 – 22 “And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God by walking in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD that I am giving you this day for your own good? Behold, to the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, and the earth and everything in it. Yet the LORD has set His affection on your fathers and loved them. And He has chosen you, their descendants after them, above all the peoples, even to this day.
Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more. For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God, showing no partiality and accepting no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and widow, and He loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. So you also must love the foreigner, since you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
You are to fear the LORD your God and serve Him. Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His name. He is your praise and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome wonders that your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt, seventy in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.”
God is offering the Israelites an incredible deal. If they will simply do four things, God will bless them abundantly.
1. “fear the LORD your God by walking in all His ways” God knows that the Israelites have spent 400 years in Egypt, learning the ways of the Egyptians. Now God wants His people to study His ways only and not those of any other culture or religion.
2. “to love Him” This commandment may be the toughest one. None of the Egyptian gods or gods of any other culture have ever demanded love -blood sacrifices and rituals, yes, but love? no. Frankly, the Israelites are clueless when it comes to knowing how to love God and need a lot of training. Throughout the history of ancient Israel, this is the commandment that the Israelites most consistently mangle.
If you love someone, you long to spend time with them. You are concerned about the likes and dislikes of your loved one, and you try to please them as much as possible. If your loved one lays down conditions for the operation of your relationship, you do everything you can to fulfill those conditions. You try never to do something that will grieve the one you love.
3. “to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” When you love a person or a group or a cause, you do everything in your power to serve the object of your love. Here God wants the Israelites to go beyond mechanical rituals and dedicate their entire immortal souls to serving Him.
4. “and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD that I am giving you this day for your own good.” God’s commandments are not merely a set of hoops through which He wants the Israelites to jump, but divine guidance that will bring them lives of abundance, peace, joy, and health. Let’s face it, an omnipotent God doesn’t need worshipers; the worshipers rather need God. God wants fellowship with those who worship Him, but this fellowship can only come if His worshipers will follow His commandments and seek to do His perfect Will.
APPLICATION: What have you done for God lately? For many of us, God has receded to the backs of our minds and we rarely even think about Him, let alone worry about what He wants for us. But nothing has really changed since the time of Moses.
“Behold, to the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, and the earth and everything in it.”
“For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God, showing no partiality and accepting no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and widow, and He loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. So you also must love the foreigner, since you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt.” In this day of international mobility, there are few of us who at one time or another have not found ourselves as “strangers in a strange land.” For many of us, our lives have been immeasurably blessed by the generosity of those who have taken us in and treated us as family members.
“You are to fear the LORD your God and serve Him. Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His name. He is your praise and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome wonders that your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt, seventy in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.” Many of us are not Jews; however, all of us can study the story of the family of Jacob. When Jacob and his household went to Egypt, there were only seventy people. By the time the Israelites left Egypt, it is estimated that altogether they numbered more than two million. We have no idea of the population of the Israelites by the time they had wandered forty years in the wilderness and were now to enter the Promised Land. Truly, God did bless Jacob and multiply the Israelites.
Why are these promises important for each one of us? God does not play favorites and He will bless anyone who comes to Him and who serves Him whole – heartedly. God wants fellowship with those who worship Him and longs for relationship with them. If we will ask God, He will surely guide us and lead us into the future He has for us.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Thank You that Your promises remain valid and that they were not merely given to the Israelites but that You wanted Israel to be a shining example for all the other nations around them. Help us to follow hard after You all the days of our lives. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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