Some thoughts for meditation following our daily devotional Scripture reading that is provided each week.
Moses exhorts Israel to love the Lord with their entire being and thereby obey his commandments. This is the essence of God’s covenant with Israel. God delivered Israel from Egypt, brought them to the land, and gave them these commandments because he loved them. Israel should thus love the Lord wholly and entirely.
Such faithful, devoted love for the Lord would be seen in tangible ways: continual reminders on their persons and in their homes (vv. 8-9); faithful teaching of children and grandchildren in every time of life (vv. 2, 6-7, 20-25); resisting temptations to forget God and go after idols, resulting from forgetting God because of the abundant bounty they inherited (vv. 10-15); resisting temptation to complain against God because of difficulty (vv. 16-19).
If Israel demonstrated faithful, devoted love for the Lord, then God would bless them in tangible ways: long life and preservation as a nation (vv. 2, 24); increased population (v. 3); and enjoyment of the promised land (vv. 3, 18-19).
Lastly, if Israel so loved the Lord and demonstrated that love by glad, willing obedience, they would have a right standing before him (v. 20). This is not legalism, for the root is faith in and love for the Lord and the fruit is glad, willing obedience to the Lord. Neither can truly exist apart from the other.
Note:
- Truly fearing (believing in) the Lord is evidenced by obeying the Lord.
- Israel’s covenant with the Lord given at Mt. Sinai promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. It was a “conditional” covenant. It was not a covenant for personal salvation so much as it was a national covenant between a people and their Sovereign.
- True love for God is evidenced in every area of life.
- God’s Word and ways must be inculcated in children.
- Living, devoted obedience of God’s Word protects from dangers from both affluence and affliction.
