In Deuteronomy 10:12, we read, “What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul?” That may seem like a long list of “requirements,” but it’s really pretty simple. God requires that we fear Him, meaning we have an understanding that He is the boss and that we submit to His Will in our lives.
God asks that we walk in His ways, meaning we are to live lives that are holy and pleasing to Him. With the Holy Spirit in our lives, I think most of us know when we are doing something right and something wrong.
God asks that we love Him! How sad that He even has to ask? This verse comes out of Deuteronomy and was written initially to the Israelites who had been rescued from Egypt. What a rescue! More importantly, though, this verse is written to Christians, who have been rescued from the penalty for our sins by Jesus Himself. How could we not love Him? We love Him when we spend time with Him, talk to Him, and help Him to care for His people.
The last “requirement” follows the previous one perfectly. When we love the Lord, how can we not serve Him? He asks us to serve Him with all our heart and with all our soul. Serving God means that we take the love that He pours into us, and we pour it out on others. Serving God means living in a way that puts the needs of others ahead of our own. Serving God means that we are His hands in this world. Serving God sometimes means setting aside time for a special project or a special mission trip, but only occasionally. Truly serving God is a day-by-day choice.
Joshua 24:15 tells us, “… choose you this day whom ye will serve.” Serving God is making a choice to serve God or to serve ourselves. It is being available, so that if the Lord places someone’s need in front of you, you will do what you can to help that need. Sometimes needs are big, most of the time they are small. But a servant’s heart is one that is always looking to help.
When we make the choice to serve the Lord, we learn that we serve the Lord all the time, in our jobs, in our homes, and in our neighborhoods. We serve wherever we go, because we take the Lord with us in our hearts wherever we go.
Serving is loving as God loved us …. sacrificially. Jesus Himself told us, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34-35). Love like Jesus loves you, and you’ll be serving the Lord.