12"And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good? 14Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. 17For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. 18He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 20You shall fear the LORD your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. 21He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen. 22Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.The start of this section has God telling us what he requires of us. Whenever I read the words of God telling us what he requires of us, Micah 6:8 always comes to mind since I learned it in Calvinettes as a teen.
We would be asked: Calvinettes, What does the Lord require of you?
Our response was: To do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your Lord.
This section expands on that. God tells us that he requires his people to:
- to fear the LORD your God,
- to walk in all his ways,
- to love him,
- to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
- to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD
For this is who God is:
He is the one who OWNS heaven and earth.
He is the one who CHOSE to set his heart in love on his people.
He is the one who CHOSE the offspring of his people.
God, who owns everything, chose to love his people.
THEREFORE God asks us to live the way that is best for us. Doesn't sound too unreasonable when it's put that way does it?
In Verse 16 these words are written: Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart.
Circumcision was a thing done to male bodies as an outward sign of God's work in the lives of his people. But God wants more from his people than outward signs. He wants changes in our hearts. He wants us to be fully committed to him and to doing the things he commands of us.
So let us then, let ME then, change how I think and live and do stuff. Let me then show him in my heart that I will live for him. That I will follow his ways. Afterall....he chose me to be his. He claims me as his own. HE the Lord of heaven and earth calls me his own. Not such a big thing after-all then to live for him.... For if he claims me, he will indeed make it possible.
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