“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?”-Deuteronomy 10:12-13
There’s something really significant I want you to notice about God’s requirements for the believer as expressed in Deuteronomy 10.
Contrary to what the Christian church teaches, notice that “love” is NOT the only demand being placed on those who would call themselves followers of the Lord.
You know, there’s a real problem with summing up the whole Torah with the refrain “Love the Lord your God with all of your mind, soul and strength…“.
The problem is the Torah spells out clearly what the Lord’s definition of loving Him means.
See, this is where we run into problems when we fall into the trap of attempting to decide for ourselves what loving God means separate from what is clearly defined in the Torah.
First and foremost, the Scriptures make it clear that to love God equals to KEEP HIS COMMANDS.
Period.
Take a good look at verse 5.
We’re given a total of five verbs (count ’em) that spell out clearly how we are to worship the Lord.
The five verbs are…
…“to revere”…
….”walk”…
…“love”…
…“serve”…
…and…
...”obey”.
And every one of these verbs are interwoven and inter-related with each other.
We can’t just pick and choose which verb we’re going to apply to our lives when it comes to our relationship with the Lord.
We have to apply ALL of these verbs to our faith and relationship with the Lord.
The true believer will keep the Lord’s commandments and love God, revere Him, walk in His ways and serve Him.
Again, all the verbs work together.
The foundational principle here is crystal clear.
As much as we try to do so, we cannot separate how we live our lives from the worship of God.
Our lifestyle and our devotion to God must go hand-in-hand.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“If you love me,
keep my commands.”
-John 14:15
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