Deuteronomy 10.14-16

“Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.”

What is God’s motive in requiring so much of His people?

Nothing that inheres in the creatures; rather, God’s motive in giving this Law for our good is that He loves us. Of His own free will He set His love on our forefathers, entering into His covenant with them and ultimately fulfilling all the terms of the covenant through our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1.20). In Jesus Christ we attain to God’s precious and very great promises, and, through these, actually participate in the very life of God – the life sketched out in His Law.

Thus, God’s covenant love, redemptive purpose, and sanctifying intent come together in His Law, for the good of His people whom He loves.

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Deuteronomy 10.14-16

“Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.”

Who is this God Who requires so much of His people?

There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind respecting the question of Who stands back of the Law of God. He is Creator, Sustainer, and Owner of all created things. Simple observation of the cosmos tells us that this God is powerful, wise, good, orderly, and unchanging.

Further, He is completely free and independent of His creatures; He has no need of the cosmos nor of the men who inhabit it (Acts 17.25). He is immense, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. He lacks for nothing. All the holy and eternal being and power of God have gone into the proclamation of His Law. Men must not doubt for a moment His intention of seeing this Law obeyed – not because of God’s desire to dominate or tyrannize His creatures, but because of His determination to bless them.

He who promises that the Law He has commanded is for our good is able, as we see from the creation around us, to cause that Law to accomplish its desired intent.

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Deuteronomy 10.12, 13

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk 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, which I am commanding you today for your good?”

Moses reminds us that God intends all that He requires of us for our “good.” That word is deliberately chosen to invoke God’s original plan for the world by recalling the many repetitions of “good” in Genesis 1. God’s plan for His people – to bless them and to bring forth His glory in and through them – has not changed. His Law is the blueprint and roadmap to restore that lost condition.

The Lord made all things good and upright, but men, by their many sinful schemes and devices, have brought ugliness, pain, hurt, sorrow, waste, destruction, and ruin to the world (Eccl. 7.29). Israel was guided onto the path of restoration in the promises of God; however, the people of the Old Covenant did not have the heart necessary to realize God’s purposes for their good (Deut. 5.29). A New Covenant, with better promises, was required before the people of God would be able to know and do His Law for their good (Jer. 31.31-34; Ezek. 36.26, 27).

In Jesus Christ reconciliation has been achieved and renewal of all things has begun; now those who trust in Him for their redemption are charged with joining in that work, as Israel of old had been charged, through the fear of God, obedience to His Law, love for Him, serving Him in all things, and guarding His Law, so that all the “good” that God intends for His people may increasingly be theirs.

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Deuteronomy 10.12, 13

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk 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, which I am commanding you today for your good?”

We must have no other gods besides the Lord our God, Who is our Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. Whatever He requires of us, we must do. Thus far we have four things which the Lord requires of His people, as these are outlined in the passage cited above.

Fifth, the Lord requires that we keep or guard His commandments and statutes. This is the way to be righteous and blameless before Him (Lk. 1.6). There is more to this “guarding” the commandments and statutes than just “walking” in them. That is certainly implied, but it has already been covered in the list of things God requires.

To “guard” the commandments is to preserve them from corruption, from whatever might cause us to compromise, neglect, or transgress them. Adam’s failure to “guard” the garden of Eden brought about the fall into sin (Gen. 2.15). He failed, first, to recognize the threat to God’s plan. Then he failed to resist it once the serpent began to deny the Word of God. Thus we also must be vigilant against every temptation that would encourage us to set aside or neglect the Law of God.

Moreover, we must teach that Law to the generation to come, guarding the pure teaching and obedience of God’s Law by imparting and entrusting it to our children and grandchildren (Deut. 6.4-7; Ps. 78.1-8). We must make every effort to teach the commandments and statutes of the Lord to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also (2 Tim. 2.2). We will more readily and eagerly guard the Law when we have begun to obey it and serve God through it in every area of our lives.

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Deuteronomy 10.12, 13

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk 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, which I am commanding you today for your good?”

Fear the Lord, walk in all His ways, and love Him. This is what the Lord requires of us, as He Himself explains in His Law.

Fourth, our Creator, Redeemer, and Lord requires that we serve Him, and that with all our soul and strength. “Heart” here comprehends in itself the three components of the soul: mind (thoughts), heart (affections), and conscience (values and priorities). “Soul” can also be translated, “life,” and probably here is intended to stand for the various aspects of everyday living – all our strength.

God has a plan – a divine economy – for His creation. Through Jesus Christ He has reconciled all things back to Himself, and He is in the process of restoring all things so that the knowledge of the glory of God can cover the earth as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2.14). It pleases Him for us to share in this great work as His servants. He has put all things under our feet so that we might rule over them in His Name and bring them to such a condition and use that they glorify Him. Now we do not see this happening as God intends; but, keeping our eye on Jesus, and walking in all His ways, we may certainly expect to make progress in seeing His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven (Heb. 2.8, 9).

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Deuteronomy 10.12, 13

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk 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, which I am commanding you today for your good?”

The Lord is our Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. He is all-wise and all loving; therefore, we need not fear anything that He might require of us. As we have seen, the Lord requires that we fear Him and walk in all His ways. It makes eminently good sense for us to do so.

Third, the Lord requires that we love Him. Now the order of love’s appearing in the requirements of God may strike us as strange. Should we not first love the Lord, then fear and obey Him? No. First we fear God, then, by faith, we take up His commands. Then we love Him. It will be much easier to love the Lord once we have begun to walk in His paths, for when we do, we will discover how good and true those paths are, and how much our Redeemer and Lord loves us by showing us to live so well.

The love we feel for God will flow from the fear and obedience we show Him. If we wait to fear and obey the Lord until we love Him as He commands, we will never get there. Let us keep the order that God requires, daily, in prayer and meditation, renewing fear of God; daily, in prayer and obedience, walking in the paths of the Lord; and daily, in the blessings and joys of these two, improving love for God Who faithfully loves and cares for us.

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Deuteronomy 10.12, 13

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk 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, which I am commanding you today for your good?”

Second, the Lord requires that we walk in all His ways. The idea of “walking” gets at our normal, everyday routines, those activities and practices by which we sustain ourselves and make progress in our lives. God requires that, in all of these, we bring our practices into conformity with His “ways,” which He has revealed to us in His Word, beginning with this Law. Paul says that in whatever we do we must seek to glorify God (1 Cor. 10.31). This is what the Lord requires of us.

But we must note that it is not always necessary for us to understand the ways of the Lord before we agree to walk in them. Indeed, it is too much to expect that we can (Is. 55.8, 9). Certainly we must understand His ways well enough in order to carry out what He requires. For this we must apply ourselves to reading, meditation, study, and conversation with other believers. But we need not understand His ways entirely before we consent to walk in them. For example, how can we understand the command to give thanks always and in everything, when trials, sorrows, and obstructions come in our path? Job’s mistake was failing to give thanks and to rest in the grace and wisdom of God. Instead, he insisted on knowing what only God can know.

We must strive to understand as far as we can the ways that God requires us to walk. But we must walk them in obedience, by faith in the wise and good counsel of our Redeemer and Lord.

Sign up to receive Crosfigell, our thrice-weekly email devotional, featuring T. M. Moore’s insights to Scripture and the Celtic Christian tradition.

Deuteronomy 10.12, 13

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk 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, which I am commanding you today for your good?”

So then, what does our Lord and Redeemer require of us?

We note first of all that He requires that we fear Him. To fear the Lord is to know Who He is, who we are, and what we deserve of Him, and what He is capable of – and justly so – doing to sinners such as we. Even though we are redeemed and delivered from slavery to sin, yet we fall into it from time to time. And, lest we become casual about such lapses, the Lord promises to act in discipline in order to return lapsed sinners to the path of righteousness (Heb. 12.1-11). Such discipline is not pleasant and can be very hard to bear. We should fear the Lord because of His power and resolve to discipline us.

We should also fear Him lest we be found to be not His children at all. The fear of the Lord keeps us striving for holiness to prove, day by day, our calling and election (Heb. 3.12-4.1; 2 Pet. 1.5-11). The fear of the Lord’s discipline and wrath is wholesome and good, and is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. By nurturing fear of the Lord we may press on day by day to bring holiness to completion (2 Cor. 7.1). Thus, because God wants us to be holy (Matt. 5.48), and because He knows that sin is destructive of our wellbeing, He requires that we fear Him, so that, fearing Him, we may walk in the holy and righteous and good path He has marked out for us in His Law (Rom. 7.12).

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