Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Joshua 22:5.
The most powerful life lived is a life fully committed to the Lord.
- Be very careful to observe the Word of God. The root idea of “observe” is to do or make. The idea is to keep, to watch, preserve the commandment and Law. The attitude is one of giving careful attention to the Law, or in our case God’s Word. Every believer was to take their own responsibility to carefully look into the Law, understand the implications of the command, and evaluate their life accordingly.
- Love the Lord your God. One of the… not-so-obvious elements of our walk with God is that it is more than just obedience to commands, He wants us to have a love relationship with Him. The most important component of being part of God’s family is relationship. I honestly believe that for some Christians, God is an idea or a concept but many fail to realize they are interacting with a real person.
- Walk in all His ways. Sometimes we outsmart ourselves by thinking our way of thinking is best. But the primary concern for a child of God is to find His way of living life. Since God is the architect of life, then He knows best the way it ought to function. We need to give attention to knowing His way of life and learn to adopt His expectations for our mode of existence.
- Keep His commandments. While the first statement regarding His commands was for His people to observe them, this call was to keep His commands. Basically this is a synonym to the term observe. The idea here is to “make it happen” and learn to live according to that truth from the Law. The double emphasis on observing and keeping His commands emphasized how important living according to His Word really was to the heart of God.
- Cling to Him. This is a powerful term that can mean: to cleave, be loyal, hold fast, or to cling to something. This reiterates the idea of desperately clinging to something for dear life. There is a certain desperation embodied to being inseparable to being with Him. The invaluable element is inherent in the idea that one should hold fast.
- Serve Him with all your heart. Love is often portrayed as serving Him. Serving Him is reciprocal with loving Him. The one who serves the Lord is the one who is committed to trusting Him too.
- Serve Him with all your soul. Serving with all your heart is accompanied with all your soul. The idea is to put all your effort with the highest level of integrity. The one who serves does not do it grudgingly or with a bad attitude. They love to do what honors Him. Their one delight is to serve the one they love, putting their whole heart into the responsibility to do thing things asked by the Lord.
This is a portrait of a powerful life. It describes full devotion and the one who delights in the Lord. There are no reservations to the one who embodies these characteristics towards the Lord. This is the one worth imitating and following through the good and the bad times. This is what I would love my life to reflect.
Pastor Brad
