CALL TO LOVE AND OBEDIENCE

-

Deuteronomy 10:12,16-17,20

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the Lord your God, and live in a way that pleases him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul.

Therefore, change your hearts and stop being stubborn.

“For the lord your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords. He is the great God, the mighty and awesome God, who shows no partiality and cannot be bribed.

You must fear the Lord your God and worship him and cling to him. Your oaths must be in his name alone.


What did God require from the children of Israel? 


Love and obedience.


As simple as it is, they couldn't comply. With all the great miracles God did in their presence, yet they could not commit. What really was their problem?


They cried out when they were suffering in Egypt, the Lord came and delivered them, they yet cried out on their journey to the promise land. What really did they want?


Moses saw their nature and spent his last days admonishing them to walk in love and obedience. They had to let go of their stubbornness if they were going to enjoy walking with God.


It is the same for believers today, the same way salvation has come to us, all we need to do is to love and obey to continue with the Lord.


What has the Lord required of us as believers?


1 John 3:1,22-24

See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.

And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him.

And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us.

Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.


It is the same love and obedience that is required of us who are of the new covenant.


Remember when the expert of the law asked Jesus what he needed to do to have eternal life:


Luke 10:25-28

One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”

The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”


It is quite simple.


What then is the problem?


The heart is not really with the Lord.


We see this with the rich young man that came to Jesus to ask the same question:


Matthew 19:20-22

“I’ve obeyed all these commandments,” the young man replied. “What else must I do?”

Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.


That is the problem. That is why Christ has to sacrifice Himself to bring true salvation to man.


We could try to do all the form of righteousness from the law but if our heart is not with God something remains missing. As we see with the young man, his heart was not really with God but with his possessions!


We are called to love and obedience, this love is firstly for God. Then it refects to others.


Mark 12:29-34

Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord.

And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’

The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

The teacher of religious law replied, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other.

And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.”

Realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.


You cannot say you have encountered Christ and not walk in love and obedience, you really have not started the journey.


You can make all the noise and do all the shows and displays, unless you have gotten the basics right, you are yet to begin.


O help us Good Lord.


PRAYER

Dear Father bring me into full love and obedience in my walk with You. Father You saved me I am committed to You forever, may no other thing take Your place in my life. I lean on You Lord, I will never fail. Glory to Your name Lord forevermore.


He calls us blessed.


Love

@the watcher.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DO YOU STILL SEE?

-
Habakkuk 2:3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, it will not tarry. It may have been easy when we first believed, to visualize the promises. We reach out with zeal, loving God, seeking to do exploits. That was when we first believed, just as Jesus said: John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." When we become born again we see God's kingdom, our spirit man is reborn and we count the flesh as nothing. Then time passes by, we are in the world, all its distractions, temptations, responsibilities, challenges and so on begin to reveal themselves. The question then is: * Can we still see heaven? John 3:3 * Are we still zealous? John 2:17 * Are we continuing in those things? Acts 2:42 * Are we walking in love? 1John 4:7 or Has the cares and worries of life and service ta
Read more

DO UNTO OTHERS . . .

-
Matthew 7:12 "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. It is hypocritical of us to expect people to stand with us when we are experiencing challenges yet when we see others face their own challenges, we begin to imagine what they must have done wrong or maybe they annoyed God or did one evil or the other instead of reaching out to help as we would desire others to do for us. The same thing goes for prosperity, when the Lord opens a door for us and we have abundance of wealth or a breakthrough we expect others to rejoice with us, more so, some would even find it hard to give to others. What is our reaction when someone else gets this breakthrough, do we get suddenly suspicious without reason. Do we expect the person to reach out to us? It is better to stay on the side of encouragement than to sit as a judge or prosecutor. Jesus said, Matthew 7:2 "For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the same
Read more

MY YEAR OF FULFILMENT

-
Psalms 57:2 I cry out to God Most High, to God who will fulfill his purpose for me. We just finished the book of 1Samuel, in this book we see the cry of Israel for a king and how God raised Saul to rule them. We also saw how Saul disobeyed God and lost kingship for himself and his generation. He did not stop there, he went on to seek for the death of David, whom he saw as the next heir of the throne. In chapter 31, the last chapter, we see how Saul and all his sons and men were killed, it was tragic, however it was as a sign of relief for David. We could go on counting all the struggles and difficulties we faced in the past year. No, we should not, we should begin to look at all the positives, remembering all the good things God has done for us. If He promised it, He will do it and that is what we hold onto as we go through this year. Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. This is the year of fulfilment, and
Read more