““So now, Israel, what does Yahweh your God ask from you, but to fear Yahweh your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of Yahweh and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good? “Behold, to Yahweh your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it. “Yet on your fathers did Yahweh set His affection to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you above all peoples, as it is this day. “So circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer. “For Yahweh your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the fearsome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe. “He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows love for the sojourner by giving him food and clothing.” (Deuteronomy 10:12–18 LSB) https://accordance.bible/link/read/LSB#Deut._10:12
A beautiful section of scripture, so clear, so concise, as to what God requires from us and how we are to live. For those who believe in God this scripture explains how to live before this God. The unwillingness to know God or to live in obedience to His commands is amazing to me for it demonstrates our total hypocrisy and utter arrogance. To truly believe in God is to live oriented toward that God. The One True God requires we fear Him, this means we are concerned about that Day when He holds us accountable for how we lived this life in obedience to His commands. Because we fear this Day to the extent that we failed to obey God, we try all the more to obey Him always. This is what it means to fear the Lord. In obeying God we learn to love God for what He requires of us, to love Him and to love others, is indeed the very thing that makes us the most happy, the most complete, the most fulfilled. Loving God and loving others is what we were truly meant to do. Loving self always is suffocating, unsatisfying, lonely and boring. God’s word is true, it is in losing our lives that we gain them. Loving God by obeying God, serving God by giving to and serving others is when we experience life to the full. We are wise when we realize that the God Who made everything will also hold all men accountable to everything He expects from us and in realizing this truth, we seek Him out, to know His will so that we can conform to His wishes and in this way please Him. The One True God is good, He is love, He requires us to love Him, to love one another and to demonstrate this love always by obeying His commands and doing to others what we would have them do to us.
