"And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask 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 observe the LORD's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?"
Deuteronomy 10:12-13
The Bible, the Old Testament especially, can seem a little harsh at times. Repeated over and over again are commands that we will love and serve the Lord first and the Lord only, worshiping Him and obeying Him and honoring Him and following Him. Submission is not a concept of which I have always been particularly fond, whether to God or to another human being, but it's a concept I've started to understand a little more this year.
We are trained to want to be in control. In our ideal world, we call the shots and make the decisions and serve our own interests, and it's all about us. To submit would be to sacrifice that self-interest and to lose all of the benefits, right? Not necessarily. What if you were submitting to One who knew better than yourself what would be good for you? What if you were submitting to One whose love for you surpassed even your own self-love? What if submission to another's commands and laws and orders would actually bring you the most satisfaction and fulfillment?
What if the One we were submitting to looked something like this?
"To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. Fear the LORD your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes."
Deuteronomy 10:14-21
Showing posts with label commandments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label commandments. Show all posts
Friday, March 19, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Equipped
Forgive as I have forgiven you.
Love one another.
Rejoice in the Lord always.
Be holy, as I am holy.
Hard words. They sound good, certainly, on skimming over them. We generally agree that forgiveness is a positive thing, we like to love and be loved, and we don't mind having joy. Holiness is a little tougher to get behind sometimes, but we could accept it. But always? The command to rejoice is the only one that explicitly includes the always, but it's implicit in the others. These commands are to fuse together into the lifestyle we live. We are to forgive every offense, love every fellow human being, and rejoice in every circumstance. We are to be holy, blameless, and set apart by our faithfulness in following these commands. Every day.
The secret is this: if He demands it of us, He equips us for it. If He sends us down a path, He has walked it before and will walk it again by our sides. We do not have to follow these commands on our own strength; in fact, we cannot. But He lived them once in a perfect life, died for our failure to live them, and will live them again through us if we let Him. And we, through dying to ourselves and living to Him, will benefit. Everything is to be gained-- forgiveness, love, joy-- and nothing is to be lost except those things that will only cause us sorrow in the end.
Love one another.
Rejoice in the Lord always.
Be holy, as I am holy.
Hard words. They sound good, certainly, on skimming over them. We generally agree that forgiveness is a positive thing, we like to love and be loved, and we don't mind having joy. Holiness is a little tougher to get behind sometimes, but we could accept it. But always? The command to rejoice is the only one that explicitly includes the always, but it's implicit in the others. These commands are to fuse together into the lifestyle we live. We are to forgive every offense, love every fellow human being, and rejoice in every circumstance. We are to be holy, blameless, and set apart by our faithfulness in following these commands. Every day.
The secret is this: if He demands it of us, He equips us for it. If He sends us down a path, He has walked it before and will walk it again by our sides. We do not have to follow these commands on our own strength; in fact, we cannot. But He lived them once in a perfect life, died for our failure to live them, and will live them again through us if we let Him. And we, through dying to ourselves and living to Him, will benefit. Everything is to be gained-- forgiveness, love, joy-- and nothing is to be lost except those things that will only cause us sorrow in the end.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sabbath
"Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest."
-God to Moses to the Israelites, Exodus 34:21
We don't really like to rest. Here in modern-day America, the land of the 60-hour workweek and the million hobbies, we've lost sight of sabbath. We're a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps culture, and you don't get ahead by taking a day off, especially not on a regular basis! But it's repeated over and over throughout Scriptures, and I see very few reasons to argue with this one.
You need rest. It's a fact of life. Your relationships need you to rest from the daily grind. Your walk with the Lord needs you to slow down from time to time. Your work will improve if you set it aside and come back later. And, I guarantee you, whatever is so urgent that it demands all of your time will most likely burn away as chaff in the scheme of eternity. Money, hobbies, the pursuit of anything other than the Lord-- they are all good things, but only when they are in their place. Even in the busiest season, it will be worth your time to give some of your time back to the Lord.
This commandment is probably the least touchy of all of them: "Take a day off." Who gets upset when they hear that? And yet, somehow, we lose this one. Are not all of the Lord's commands for our own benefit as well as for His glory? Are they not all worth following?
-God to Moses to the Israelites, Exodus 34:21
We don't really like to rest. Here in modern-day America, the land of the 60-hour workweek and the million hobbies, we've lost sight of sabbath. We're a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps culture, and you don't get ahead by taking a day off, especially not on a regular basis! But it's repeated over and over throughout Scriptures, and I see very few reasons to argue with this one.
You need rest. It's a fact of life. Your relationships need you to rest from the daily grind. Your walk with the Lord needs you to slow down from time to time. Your work will improve if you set it aside and come back later. And, I guarantee you, whatever is so urgent that it demands all of your time will most likely burn away as chaff in the scheme of eternity. Money, hobbies, the pursuit of anything other than the Lord-- they are all good things, but only when they are in their place. Even in the busiest season, it will be worth your time to give some of your time back to the Lord.
This commandment is probably the least touchy of all of them: "Take a day off." Who gets upset when they hear that? And yet, somehow, we lose this one. Are not all of the Lord's commands for our own benefit as well as for His glory? Are they not all worth following?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)