Reading through Deuteronomy 11 and 12, I notice a lot of repetition. The same commands, the same reminders. I have blogged twice now about God urging the Israelites to remember. And here again, He is reminding them of some foundational truths.
Before I scoff at how the Israelites needed reminders of the same things over and over, I think of how many times I say the same things over and over to my kids, and even more so, how many times the Lord has to teach me the same truth over and over. We are prone to wander, consistently forgetting. But thankfully our God loves us enough to not give up on us in our sin. So He teaches us over and over, the most basic, but often the most difficult, truths. Here are three that we see in Deuteronomy 11 and 12.
Love the Lord. Three times in chapter 11 it says to Love the Lord your God. We've heard this before in the Shema and we hear it again when Jesus identifies this as the first and greatest commandment. God is very serious about wanting all of our hearts. That we would love Him before all else and that our love for Him would be the compelling force behind everything else we do. It's easy to go through the motions of mission, worship and spiritual disciplines without loving God first or without loving Him the most (or maybe without loving Him at all?). May we be a community who loves God first and wholeheartedly and may everything else be an overflow of that love.
Obey the Lord. Each command to love God in this passage comes with some form of the command to obey God. Keep his requirements, walk in all his ways, serve him with all your heart, hold fast to him, observe all the commands, obey the commands, etc. These are commands, not suggestions. Why is God so serious about obedience? Because our obedience honors God, demonstrates our love for Him, is evidence of our trust in Him, and ultimately, brings life. We see three times in chapter 11 that God promises blessing to His people when they obey....strength to go into and take over the land they will possess, rain to make their new land fruitful, and the driving out of nations larger and stronger than they are. He also warns of a curse for choosing disobedience. Obedience brings blessing. Everything else leads to destruction and separation.
Get rid of idols. Idols keep us from loving and obeying God. And once again, because God is serious about our love and obedience, He is also very serious about getting rid of anything that stands in the way of us doing that. Listen to the words in 12:2-3 that describe what the Israelites should do with the idols they are about to encounter: Destroy. Break down. Smash. Burn. Cut down. Wipe out. This is not a polite request to please move the idols out of the way. God knew that the temptation to worship false gods in the new land would be great. He warns against the Israelites being enticed to worship other gods. Therefore, He tells them to be extreme in their destruction of these idols. Our world is no different. False gods abound, vying for our attention and our affection. May we go to great lengths to destroy idols and choose wholehearted love and obedience instead.
Love the Lord your God... (Deuteronomy 11:1, 13, 22)
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