Our Response of Love

 

Deuteronomy 6:4-19

Loving God is the Greatest Commandment

One of the teachers of the Law asked Jesus, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “

The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” （Mark12:28-31）

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” is found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5.

Through a careful study of Deuteronomy Chapter 6 we would come to understand why God instructs us to love Him wholeheartedly and how we could love God wholeheartedly.

Why Love God wholeheartedly? (vv. 4-5)

Deuteronomy 6:4-5, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and will all your strength.” points out that the LORD our God” is “One”, and He is “your God”. This brings to our attention that the LORD (YHWH) is our only one God.

The immediate context before this scripture recalled the incident where the Israelites led by Moses, had exited Egypt, and reached Mount Sinai, where God then made a covenant with them and gave them the Ten Commandments.

Before the first Commandment that said, “You shall have no other gods before me,” God showed the Israelites who He was, and He said to them, “Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.” (Deuteronomy 5:1-2)

Hence, we can see that God instructed the Israelites to observe His Commandments, and His intention was for them to pay attention to “Who indeed is your God? Who is the One that rescues you?” It is the LORD (YHWH)!

Yahweh had first delivered them out of slavery in Egypt. Yahweh then entered into a covenant with them at Sinai. Yahweh said, “I am your God, and you are my people.” Since the Israelites knew that only the LORD YHWH is their God who had delivered them out of Egypt, they would have to love Him with all their hearts and minds, and to worship and serve Him only.

How about us today? We have experienced the amazing salvation of God. The Lord Jesus is the One who has rescued us from sin. He loves us and He has made with us a blood covenant to enable us to be the children of God. How should we respond to the Lord who has rescued us and covenanted with us?

We are to love and serve Him with all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds and all our strength.

How to keep loving God and he faithful to Him? (vv.6-19)

If we were to be faithful to God wholeheartedly in our lives, the first and foremost thing we would do would be to keep the Word of God in our hearts.

The description in Deuteronomy 6:6-9 is considerably vivid and concrete: when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up, you have to talk about God’s instructions; And they have to tie the Word of God as symbols on their hands, and to bind them on their foreheads, and write them on the doorframes of their houses and on their gates.

All these seek to help us keep the Word of God in our hearts.

It is very important to keep the Word of God in our hearts because the Word of God is able to help us from being ungrateful towards God’s kindness so that we won’t sin against Him by not observing the laws of God nor serving Him.

Then Moses issued three warnings to the Israelites:

1.      Man tends to be forgetful about the kindness of God (vv.10-12）

Moses warned against those Israelites who were about to enter the Land of Canaan, that as they enjoyed all kinds of blessings and good things, they “need to be careful that they do not forget the Lord, who brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”

Man tends to forget the kindness of God easily, and we would not remember the God who gives and blesses us when we are full and satisfied. The Lord Jesus has rescued us. We receive not merely His grace to pardon our sins, but His blessings of an eternal life. Moreover, the many blessings and happiness during this life are all out His grace and not a coincidence.

The Bible reminds us to be watchful, and to not forget the Lord who saves us. We are to keep the Word of God in our hearts, and to remember Jesus Christ as our Savior.

Whenever we partake the communion, we are reminded by the Word of God that His body was given up for us, and his precious blood was shed for us, so that we can have an abundant life. The Lord Jesus is the One who gives us this abundant life, and we should serve Him wholeheartedly, and give all our praises and thanksgiving to Him.

2.      Man is easily tempted (vv. 13-14）

Moses warned the Israelites that though people all over the land of Canaan were worshipping many gods, the Israelites had to worship and serve the Lord alone. Yet the Israelites did not take seriously the Word of God nor keep them in their hearts.

When other nations sought different gods for big harvests in their farms or blessing them with children, the Israelites followed them in worshipping those gods. They forgot completely that all these blessings were given by God.

We are easily tempted in our journey of following the way of the Lord. There are many things in our lives that would draw us away from following God wholeheartedly.

For example, our pursuit of money and materials, or other life purposes, have caused us to rely on our various experiences and strategies to achieve all these goals instead of trusting God for His leading in our lives. We do not follow God wholeheartedly.

Man is easily tempted. We must keep the Word of God in our hearts and to remind ourselves to follow Him wholeheartedly. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Prov 3:5-6)

3.      It is easy for man to test God in his difficulties (vv. 16-17）

Moses warned the Israelites, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah.” （Duet 6:16）

“Massah” means “temptation”. When the Israelites crossed the Red Sea and as they departed from Elim, they traveled to a place and started grumbling against Moses for bringing them out from Egypt to die in the wilderness in thirst because there was no source of waters.

Moses called out to the Lord, and the Lord instructed Moses to hit the rock, which caused water to gush out from the rock to be consumed by the Israelites.

Moses named that place “Massah” because the Israelites tested the Lord there, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Ex 17:1-7）

We still would face difficulties in life after we have come to believe in Jesus. When we face predicaments and feel desperate, our faith in God might be shaken, like the Israelites who almost died of thirst and who grumbled against God’s leading. They doubted whether God was still with them.

However, Moses reminded us not to test God, but to pay attention to God’s Word. (v.17)

We will have inner struggles when we encounter difficulties. The temptation of Satan will cause us to put our focus on those difficulties, and it will cause us to forget that we do have a powerful God. And it will even cause us to grumble against God and not to listen to Him. However, who should we follow? Whose voice should we take heed to?

It is easy for man to tempt God in his difficulties. We must put the Word of God in our hearts, and not to test God in our difficulties, but to listen to the voice of God. We must follow the example of Christ, who overcame the devil’s temptation in the wilderness. Christ held on to obey God’s word when facing temptation. He said, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.” (Matthew 4:10）

Conclusion

Many people think that in the Old Testament time, people obeyed the law in order for them to be saved and blessed. People would suffer punishment if they did not observe the law. But then in the New Testament, people are saved by faith and their salvation has nothing to do with observing the law.

In fact, this understanding of God’s relationship with His elects in the Old Testament is considered partial. In reality, the Old Testament first talked about God choosing Abraham and blessing him and his descendants. God rescued the descendants of Abraham, the Israelites, and delivered them out from Egypt, the land of slavery, and led them into the Promised Land to enjoy their blessings.

Because God had saved the Israelites at first, hence the law of Moses commanded the Israelites to be grateful to God and hence love Him wholeheartedly and to obey His laws.

People who truly love God will naturally obey the laws of God, which requires them to love their neighbors. Therefore, all the laws hang on loving God and loving others.

So, the Old Testament and the New Testament both emphasize that God is gracious to his people, and thus God’s people must response by loving God and man. It is not an empty talk, but where one chooses, willingly and voluntarily, to listen to God’s laws and obey His Word and His will.

Moreover, our commitment to love God and love our neighbors will not be affected by environment changes, be it good or bad, or by temptations and oppression of the devil imposed on us.

We have gone through almost two years of MCO, and we can’t go back to church to worship God and fellowship with our brothers and sisters frequently. Given this scenario, some people conclude that many Christians will fall away from God and keep themselves away from other members. In other words, they will backslide in their faith under such a difficult situation.

Is it true? We need to ask ourselves personally. Let’s have a self-reflection:

Do we love God and man today? Or have we left both God and man already?

May God show us His mercy! May the Holy Spirit enable us to remember the teachings of the Lord, so that we will always remember God’s grace, which in turn help remind us to follow Him wholeheartedly. And, it does help us to be faithful to God’s even in our difficult moments.

Let’s love and serve the Lord with all our hearts and with all our minds, so that we will become a people who is pleasing to Him.