What Does God Want from You?

Daily Devotional

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Deuteronomy 10:12-13 And now, Israel, 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, To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

God does not require much from us. The first evidence of that is that when God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, apart from the requirement of being good stewards of all that He had left them in charge of, the only other stipulation was for them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  That was not asking for much.  While today the evolution of man’s relationship with God has gone well beyond the Garden of Eden experience, God is still not asking much of us. In Deuteronomy 10:12 Moses sought to bring home this point to the Children of Israel when he asked the question, “what doth the Lord require of thee”? He answered the question he asked by listing four things that God required of them. The first thing that he mentioned was “to fear the Lord thy God”. Fearing the Lord is to esteem him above all else. Job indicated that this was where he was despite the troubles that he faced in Job 23:12 when he said. “I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food”.

The second requirement Moses noted was “to walk in His ways”. We walk in God’s ways by upholding His laws and principles. Moses exemplified this in Exodus 40:16, where the Bible said Moses did everything just as the LORD commanded him. Another requirement that was stated by Moses was to love God.  Loving God is a choice that we must make by taking deliberate steps to continually fuel our passion for Him. The church at Ephesus mentioned in Revelation 2, lost their first love because they made that choice. 

The final requirement that was stated by Moses was that they “serve the Lord with all their heart and soul”.  We serve God by carrying out the purpose that he has established for our lives and doing so by giving it all that we have. Paul fulfilled His purpose and gave it all that He had and was able to testify in 2 Timothy 4:7 that “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course”.

The bottom line of what God wants of us is: to keep His laws and principles and fulfill our purpose. In order to enable us to do this, we must choose to love Him and make Him our priority. In lieu of all that He has done for us, He is not asking much.

Life Application: Fulfill all that God wants from you by choosing to love Him and put Him first so that you are positioned to keep His laws and principles as well as carry out our God given purpose.

Prayer: Lord, you have given so much to me and made the ultimate sacrifice for mankind. Help me to fulfill your requirements for me by honoring you and pleasing you in all I do. In Jesus’ name, amen.