Deuteronomy 10.12, 13

“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, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?”

The Lord is our Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. He is all-wise and all loving; therefore, we need not fear anything that He might require of us. As we have seen, the Lord requires that we fear Him and walk in all His ways. It makes eminently good sense for us to do so.

Third, the Lord requires that we love Him. Now the order of love’s appearing in the requirements of God may strike us as strange. Should we not first love the Lord, then fear and obey Him? No. First we fear God, then, by faith, we take up His commands. Then we love Him. It will be much easier to love the Lord once we have begun to walk in His paths, for when we do, we will discover how good and true those paths are, and how much our Redeemer and Lord loves us by showing us to live so well.

The love we feel for God will flow from the fear and obedience we show Him. If we wait to fear and obey the Lord until we love Him as He commands, we will never get there. Let us keep the order that God requires, daily, in prayer and meditation, renewing fear of God; daily, in prayer and obedience, walking in the paths of the Lord; and daily, in the blessings and joys of these two, improving love for God Who faithfully loves and cares for us.

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