The Essence of the Law
Teach me to seek you, and as I seek you, show yourself to me; for I cannot seek you unless you show me how and I will never find you unless you show yourself to me. Let me seek you by desiring you, and desire you by seeking you; let me find you by loving you and love you by finding you. Amen.
(Anglican Book of Common Prayer, 2019)
Deuteronomy 10:12-13 NKJV
What does the LORD your God require of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, to love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD your God and His decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own good.
Origen
God seeks from us and entreats us, not because he needs something that we have to give him but, after we have given it to him, he will account that very thing to us for our salvation.[1]
Matthew Henry
We are here taught our duty to God in our principles and our practices. We must fear the Lord our God. We must love him, and delight in communion with him. We must walk in the ways in which he has appointed us to walk. We must serve him with all our heart and soul. What we do in his service we must do cheerfully, and with goodwill. We must keep his commandments. There is true honour and pleasure in obedience. We must give honour to God; and to him we must cleave, as one we love and delight in, trust in, and from whom we have great expectations.[2]
Warren Wiersbe
Loving obedience to the Lord is the key to every blessing . . . The sequence of these five imperatives is significant: fear, walk, love, serve, and keep. The fear of the Lord is that reverential awe that we owe Him simply because He is the Lord. Both in the Old Testament and the New, the life of faith is compared to a walk. It starts with a step of faith in trusting Christ and yielding ourselves to Him, but this leads to a daily fellowship with Him as we walk together in the way that He has planned. The Christian walk implies progress, and it also implies balance: faith and works, character and conduct, worship and service, solitude and fellowship, separation from the world and ministry and witness to the world. Obeying Him is “for our own good”, for when we obey Him, we share His fellowship and enjoy His blessings and avoid the sad consequences of disobedience.[3]
Lord of all being,
There is one thing that deserves my greatest care, that calls forth my ardent desires, that is, that I may answer the great end for which I am made – to glorify thee who hast given me being, and to do all the good I can for my fellow men; verily life is not worth having if it be not improved for this noble purpose.
Give me grace always to keep in covenant with thee, and to reject as delusion a great name here or hereafter, together with all sinful pleasures or profits. Help me to know continually that there can be no true happiness, no fulfilling of thy purpose for me, apart from a life lived in and for the Son of thy love. Amen.[4]
I Want to Be More Like Jesus
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Corinthians 4.15).
[1] Ancient Christian Commentary Old Testament Volume 3, p. 292.
[2] Matthew Henry and Thomas Scott, Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 1997), Dt 10:12.
[3] The Bible Exposition Commentary Volume 2, Old Testament Genesis through Deuteronomy, pp. 399-400.
[4] “Man’s Great End,” The Valley of Vision, p. 13.
