Through Moses, God gave them 5 basic requirements that were expected of them as the people of God. They were: 1. to reverence or honor the Lord by submitting to and having the highest respect for Him; 2. to walk in all God’s ways, meaning they were to conduct their lives according to His ways; 3. to love God over all other things or people; 4. to worship the Lord as the central, focal point of their lives, which would be the natural outcome of loving Him; 5. to obey the requirements of the Law that the Lord had given them.<\/p>\n
God gives them a simple but profound reason for doing these things: “for your good.\u201d<\/p>\n
This may sound strange to a young believer\u2019s ears\u2014that God\u2019s commandments are actually for our own good. So often our selfish hearts view any limits to our \u201cfreedom\u201d as something that hinders or hurts our chances at having a full, enjoyable life. But in fact the opposite is true. If for example we follow God\u2019s law, and only have an intimate relationship with our spouse, all the days of our lives, and the same limits<\/em> are exercised by our spouse, then there is very little, if any, chance of ever getting a venereal disease, not to mention the emotional protection that comes with having one partner. We see that rather than limiting us and making life \u201cless free,\u201d it turns out that carefully following the LORD brings automatic blessings in the way of a lack of many diseases: spiritually, physically, and mentally. And in the end, if we live a life following God\u2019s commands, we find that we are so much freer from the scars and excess baggage of sin.<\/p>\n \u201cLORD forgive me for thinking of Your ways as limiting when in fact they are designed to bring me freedom and protection.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n =============================================================<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deuteronomy 10 KJV<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1<\/sup>\u00a0At that time the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.\u00a02<\/sup>\u00a0And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.\u00a03<\/sup>\u00a0And I made an ark\u00a0of\u00a0<\/em>shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand.\u00a04<\/sup>\u00a0And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the\u00a0LORD\u00a0spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the\u00a0LORD\u00a0gave them unto me.\u00a0\u00a05<\/sup>\u00a0And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the\u00a0LORD\u00a0commanded me. 6<\/sup>\u00a0And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest\u2019s office in his stead.\u00a07<\/sup>\u00a0From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters. 8<\/sup>\u00a0At that time the\u00a0LORD\u00a0separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the\u00a0LORD, to stand before the\u00a0LORD\u00a0to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day.\u00a09<\/sup>\u00a0Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the\u00a0LORD\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>his inheritance, according as the\u00a0LORD\u00a0thy God promised him.\u00a010<\/sup>\u00a0And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the\u00a0LORD\u00a0hearkened unto me at that time also,\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>the\u00a0LORD\u00a0would not destroy thee.\u00a0\u00a011<\/sup>\u00a0And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0said unto me, Arise, take\u00a0thy\u00a0<\/em>journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.\u00a0 12<\/sup>\u00a0And now, Israel, what doth the\u00a0LORD\u00a0thy God require of thee, but to fear the\u00a0LORD\u00a0thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the\u00a0LORD\u00a0thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,\u00a013<\/sup>\u00a0To keep the commandments of the\u00a0LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?\u00a014<\/sup>\u00a0Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>the\u00a0LORD\u2019S\u00a0thy God, the earth\u00a0also\u00a0<\/em>, with all that therein\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>.\u00a015<\/sup>\u00a0Only the\u00a0LORD\u00a0had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them,\u00a0even\u00a0<\/em>you above all people, as\u00a0it is\u00a0<\/em>this day.\u00a016<\/sup>\u00a0Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.\u00a017<\/sup>\u00a0For the\u00a0LORD\u00a0your God\u00a0is<\/em>God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:\u00a018<\/sup>\u00a0He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.\u00a019<\/sup>\u00a0Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.\u00a020<\/sup>\u00a0Thou shalt fear the\u00a0LORD\u00a0thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name.\u00a021<\/sup>\u00a0He\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>thy praise, and he\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.\u00a022<\/sup>\u00a0Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the\u00a0LORD\u00a0thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Through Moses, God gave them 5 basic requirements that were expected of them as the people of God. They were: 1. to reverence or honor the Lord by submitting to and having the highest respect for Him; 2. to walk in all God’s ways, meaning they were to conduct their lives according to His ways; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5879"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16011,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5879\/revisions\/16011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}