God’s Commands

Keeping God’s Commands

Donʼt we all want to live long, prosper, and have things go well with us? The Bible has the answer for this age-old question. God want our hearts.

Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!  Deuteronomy 6:20

40 day fast

What do you need to fast from?

An idol is anything that distracts you from focusing your heart and life on Jesus Christ. Is there anything that is taking too much of your time and energy. What holds your heart? What are you longing for? What do you hunger for? What do you love? God has given us many good things in the world for us to enjoy. The problem begins when we start to seek after these things instead of the Giver of all good things. He wants us to enjoy life, but He wants us to enjoy Him more! Our Heavenly Father craves relationship with us just like we crave relationship with our children. We want to know our childrenʼs hearts. We want them to share their hopes and dreams and fears with us. We want to know what they care about and who they love. We crave intimacy with them because we love them. God craves intimacy with us because He loves us. When he sees us distracted by things of this world, Iʼm sure his heart is broken. He is sad because He knows that we have bought into something that will not satisfy our souls.

He knows we are setting ourselves up for disappointment and grief when we put our hope in anything or anyone but Him. He has told us the better way! Incline our hearts to fear Him. Keep all of His commands. It’s that simple. Not easy, but simple.

How do we incline our hearts to fear Him?

We need to slow down. There must be time to search our hearts. If we keep our lives too busy and full, we have no time for reflection. We need to make space in our lives for getting to know God better, share our hearts with Him, and listen to His direction for our lives. When we do not fear God, we do our own thing, and end up far from His best plan for us. When we fear God, we submit our lives to his leadership, we worship Him for who He is, we long for his will to come to pass in our lives, and we make it our top priority to please Him in how we live our lives.

How do we keep all of His commands?

We keep Godʼs commands by hiding them in our hearts. When we seek God and love Him, and become His own, He writes his commands on our hearts. He puts a new spirit in us that knows truth and longs to please Him. No, we will not be perfect in this life, but we can honor God even in the way that we deal with the sin in our lives. We confess our sin and

he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness,  1 John 1:9.

When we love God, we want to keep his commands.

This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world.  1 John 5:3

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