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? Deuteronomy 10.12-13
I’ve formatted the
verse so that it is easy to see those infinitives, to fear, to walk, etc. One
thing to do when it comes to meditating on this sentence is to be clear about
what each infinitive means. They are all pretty much church words, words that we
think we know but don’t really understand. I’ll leave that for you to do. And
I’ll suggest that you consider writing out how you understand each of those
words. That helps to make sure that you express how you understand what they
mean.
I will comment on
two other words here. The first is ‘require’. Here’s a dictionary definition
for that: ‘to demand; to impose obligation’. So, all these infinitives are
activities that God requires of His
people. This is why it’s important to be clear on what they mean. How can you
meet that requirement if you don’t know what God actually expects? An
interesting question to ask is this. What might happen if someone does not meet
these requirements?
The other word is
‘ways’. What is that all about? What are God’s ways? Some more dictionary
definitions: manner, mode, or fashion; characteristic or habitual manner. God
has a way about Him. So, when He requires us ‘to walk in all His ways’ it’s not
just a matter of how to act in this or that situation. We are to imitate Him in
the way that He does things. We are to imitate His manner, His style. That goes
deeper than just how we act.