Fear the Lord Your God
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Deuteronomy 10:12–21 (NIV)
And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, 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?
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 ancestors 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 foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.
Pray
I have a ‘man draw’ at home - it has enough stuff in it that I have managed to convince Zeph and Zkee that it contains everything and anything of importance or use.
They also now better than to go looking in there themselevse for something!
They come to me the owner first - and it’s a great priveldge and excitemnt to be allowed somehting out of it.
I suspect we all have a very personal area in our lives.
Perhaps it’s a handbag - your car, a work space.
Somewhere that is yours - you own eveything in that place - and no-one else has any claim or right to it!
In fact - for someone else to use it as their own would be unthinkable.
It’s our own little world or control and possessions.
The Lord God also has a place like this:
To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.
Everything known to us and not know to us - is the Lord God’s very own.
His possession, his right to control and own. It is from his design and for his pleasure and use.
It ought to be no suporise that He, the Lord God, is a jealous God - rightous and justiofied when someone in his created space of all authority - worships another, or turns away in sin, or grabs control for themselves.
This is the reminder given to Israel - when for the second time God gives them the rules of his created space -the earth.
And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, 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?
If a theif took your handbag - or car - if even your chidlren rifled through your man draw without permission or respect for it’s importance and your rules,
then justice ought to be brought about.
It’s this sort of contect and understanding that God ought to be feared - for all is his, that makes his grace so extraordinary.
Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today.
As the Israleiets rummidged disrespectufuully through God’s man draw - he nonetheless choses to set his affection on them.
of course the place that all their and our disrespect, sins, idolataries are seen most clearly - standing on a hill both in history and symbolically - is Jesus, the Son of God - hung on a cross at the hands of humanity.
Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today.
Amazing Grace.
So how should we respond - how should we rightly fear the Lord God to which all things belong:
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 foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.
Let’s praise the Lord God for who he is - thank him for his grace to us, and pray that we would respond rightly using these verses,