What Doth the Lord thy God Require of Thee? / Mrs Lisa Hampton

Mrs Lisa Hampton

Pastor's Wife

Open Door Baptist Church

Desloge, MO

What Doth The Lord thy God Require of Thee? 

Deuteronomy 10:12-13 And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

So now that I am a Christian, “What does God want of me?” The scriptures lay this out very plainly in Deut 10:12. This scripture breaks it down in to four areas. We are going to review each area and what they mean for us in our daily lives and walk with the Lord.

1. Fear the Lord; What does it mean to fear the Lord? Does it mean to be terrified? Always living in fear that if you do something that will anger him, he will punish you with some disease or horrible event. Though there are some instances that we can find in scripture where God sent trials to certain people, it was always to point them to God, to try and get them to turn from sin to him, and in some cases to test their faith and glorify the Lord. Job is a good example of this. Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil. He had done nothing wrong, when God allowed calamity to come into his life. God allowed his faith to be tested, and in the end, he still glorified the Lord. Job was a man who feared the Lord. He did not blame God for what happened. No matter how bad it got, he knew that God was in control.

Though God is perfectly within his right to punish sin, in whatever way he deems fit, he is full of mercy. He does not want us to be afraid of him, he wants us to honor and reverence him. He wants us to respect him. God is a longsuffering and compassionate God. Psalm 86:15, I Tim 1:16, and 2 Pet 3:9 bears this out. Just as Job did, our fear or reverence for the Lord should motivate us to live our lives in such a way as to please him.

2. To walk in all His ways; This speaks to how we live our daily lives. He wants us to walk in his ways or his goings. You know that old saying “actions speak louder then words”. Enoch walked with God and it pleased God that he did so. Genesis 5:24 and Heb 11:5 God wants us to walk with him and have intimate fellowship with him.

Job 23:11, Psalm 37:23, Psalm 44:18, Psalm 119:133 and I Pet 2:21

3. To Love Him; Our love for him should motivate us to action. Our love for him should reflect in our obedience to his word. We should have a sincere desire to please him in all that we do. To love God is one of the first commandments Mark 12:30. When we love God like we are supposed to, there are positive benefits to that. Romans 8:28 is a prime example. In John 14:21, Jesus is very clear that our love for him will motivate us to obey his commandments and live a life that is pleasing to him. And the fact of the matter is if we

could learn to love God the way we are supposed to, we would be able to love others the way we should as well.

4. To Serve Him; We serve God using our time, talents, and treasure. It’s a giving of ourselves. There are many things that can distract us from serving the Lord as we should, our jobs, our health, our hobbies, and sometimes even our family. We know there are times we have to work to put food on the table, but when we allow that to interfere with our service, that is a problem. We can get wrapped up in hobbies that keep us out of church. We can let our health get so bad, that we are unable to serve. And yes we can allow our spouse or children to be a hinderance. Many times over the years I have seen spouses keep the other out of church, or not allowing them to serve in church. This is both men and women. I have also seen people put their kids sports activities in front of church. This can cause a mixed message to our kids, about where our priorities are about our service to God. I Sam 12:24, Matthew 6:24, and John 12:26

5. To Keep His Commandments; Lastly we are to keep his commandments, or his laws. We are not to think that by keeping his commandments that this will get us to heaven. John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments. John 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. By keeping his commandments we demonstrate our love for him, as he demonstrated his love for the Father.

Read De 5:29-31. We now have no excuse for not knowing what God requires of us. Now that we know, we are accountable. We need to make it personal “What doth the Lord Thy God require of ?????