Love & Keep

You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always.
Deuteronomy 11:1

God did not want to make of His people Israel a nation of blind adherents to the Law. The key to the relationship was love. God loved and cared for them. They loved and kept His commands. The reciprocal nature of the relationship was meant to build the nation into a powerful witness to the world of God's great and unfailing love.

God enters into relationship with us and we should act on our end of that relationship. We should love God. He is always the initiator because we are unable to truly come to Him as dead sinners. But when we feel the call, we must respond! That way that love is expressed is by living for Him, keeping His commands from our hearts. Living as a Christian is all about making our heart's passion that of pleasing our Lord. It is surrender and love in being all consumed in Jesus! It is like what a married person knows in finding joy in the things that delight and please their spouse.

The challenge for me today will be to love God by doing what He loves and commands. It means practicing the right choices, loving people around me even while they are imperfect and even hurtful, just like God loves every sinner while they were still sinners. It means expecting righteous living in my own heart, thoughts, and actions just as God expects that those who love Him would truly love Him from the heart!

- Posted with my iPad. The Apple Kool-Aide tastes fine.