Deuteronomy 10:12

I don't know how many times over the last few years that I have read Deuteronomy 10:12. But it wasn't until this last time that it about knocked me off my spiritual chair. I am blown away! God is talking to Israel right before they take possession of the Promise Land. And He tells them, "What does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul." Verse 13 completes the thought with "and to keep the LORD'S commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good." Not everyone cherishes the thought of fearing God. Unbelievers should fear His judgement and wrath. They should fear His thoughts towards them, because if they aren't saved, when they die they will be sent to hell for all eternity. That should make every child of Satan fear a holy God. But many times the bible talks about believers fearing God. We never have to fear things like death or what other people say about us or can do to us. But we do fear our God. The Greek word for fear is "phobos". It's where we get our word "phobia". The Greek means: fear, dread, terror, reverence, awe. Believers reverence God as a controlling motive for their life. We are in awe of Him. Even though as believers we can never loose our salvation, we can still be disciplined by our Father for our behavior, for acting in a way that is not in keeping with His holy nature and in keeping with the commands He gives us. Read Hebrews 12:5-11 on God's discipline for His children. In fearing God, we understand how much He hates sin. This reverent "fear" has a great impact on how we live our lives before Him. We are in awe of God's capabilities, and the fear of our Father inspires obedience! The fear of my God will aid me in living a life of respect for Him and His holiness. Because I love and fear Him, I will want to obey Him. I will submit to His righteous discipline of me, and I will worship Him in awe and adoration. This and more is what the fear of the Lord means to His children.
It is so critical to walk in all of God's ways. Psalm 25:4-5 is something that I pray with tears to my Master: "Show me your ways, O Lord. Teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me. For You are the God of my salvation. On You I wait all the day." I know that I know that He has honored this prayer I have been praying for the last 2 years. He is the one that showed it to me, and gave me the wisdom to understand how important it is to long for this. If you are a true believer, you can't walk outside of God's will while still maintaining any peace and joy whatsoever. If you are living and walking in sin, you are not growing in the Lord, and you will be very aware that God has turned His face from you. There is NO walking outside of God's ways that is worth it. I often pray and tell my Shepherd that I don't want to take one single step outside of His steps. I don't want to wander even one inch off the path where He leads me! If He isn't going before me then I don't want to go! And beloved, there is no way to walk in all of God's ways if you don't learn all of them by reading your bible! And beware if God has been laying it on your heart to be faithful in picking up His word and reading it, and you not obeying Him. The Holy Spirit will prompt you if you are a true believer. You best heed that prompting. When you are saved, the Holy Spirit will come to live inside you and you will be filled with a measure of wisdom and understanding. But there is no way to grow in the grace and knowledge of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2Peter 3:18) like you should without reading His word! God's not going to give you all the knowledge of Himself that He wants you to have by spiritual osmosis. You have to read your bible to know all of His ways, to be able to walk in them, period. And if you are not, then you are in sin and God will eventually deal with you.
He then tells us to serve Him with all our heart and soul. First, are you serving your Master in some capacity? If you belong to Jesus, He has some form of service in His plan for your life. Have you let HIM decide your service or are you choosing what you enjoy or what puts you square in the limelight? This is wrong if it's what you're doing and you will wear yourself our. God will make sure of it. He is your Master and He alone has the right to decide how and where you serve Him. It may be something that you think you are totally incapable of doing, or something that you have no inkling for. It shouldn't matter what you think or feel. Obey Him and do what He calls you to. If you are faithful and obey Him, then He will equip you with the ability to carry it out. And once you are faithful to obey, then He will give you a joy unspeakable in this service to Him. If you try to decide where you want to serve, it will never be as good as it should be. And you won't have the success in that service like you would if you would let Jesus put you where HE wants you. I'll give you one example. And no, I don't know anyone in the choir who is doing this, it's just an example. You may be thinking you're doing a really great service to the Lord by singing in the choir. Besides, you have a beautiful voice and the congregation loves your solos. But Jesus has let you know that He wants you serving in the nursery that hour and attending service the second hour, when they have a band instead of a choir. And you aren't needed in the band but Jesus needs you in the nursery first hour. But you've never been very fond of listening to screaming babies or having to change dirty diapers, so you choose to disobey your Master and sing in the choir. And boy, you get some really great solos and it's nice when people tell you how much your song touched their hearts. But you know what...instead of enjoying the praise of others, you need to ask Jesus how HE feels about your song. Could it be that the song that you think is a wonderful sacrifice of love to your God is a horrible screeching noise in His ear because of the heart in which you are offering it to Him? When He knows the fact that you're not really offering it to Him, you are offering it to please yourself and the ears of others, it will not be a sweet offering to the One who matters. He will not accept any offering of service you give to Him when He clearly lets you know that you are out of His will. Don't fool yourself. God will not be mocked. So when you pray about serving your Lord, ask Him where HE wants you to serve. Don't choose for yourself. We're human and tend to like the limelight. You may choose a service that puts you in notice of the whole congregation when your Master is wanting to put you cleaning the church toilets. You may want to lead your church in women's events when God is calling you to clean houses of elderly people in your neighborhood because they can't afford to have it done. And He is wanting you to witness to them while dusting their furniture. As Oswald Chambers would ask you: Are you willing to be nothing more than a doormat in serving others for the glory of your King? I'd like to add to that question: Are you willing to never be thought of again, and just go quietly and serve your Master? Are you willing to do whatever He calls you to, even if it means never receiving any recognition or praise from man? That one was tough for me when I first started the process of understanding serving my Master. It's human nature to want someone on this earth to notice that you are giving your time and talents, or even your money, to the cause of Christ. But that goes against what the bible teaches me. Jesus wants to continue to grow us, and get us to the place where it doesn't matter if another soul ever knows what we do in serving Him. He will be glorified! And if we never here a nice word down here on this earth for all the things we do in serving Him, one day our King will look at us and say, "Well done, good and faithful servant!"
Serve your Lord today! If you are serving where you like instead of where He wanted, then seek His face on how to get right with Him. It's never too late to obey the voice of your Savior, your Master and King.