The past couple of blogs have focused on God’s love with the themes of:
1) His great love with which He loves us, for it is truly amazing;
2) knowing with unwavering certainty His love for us.
Why is love so important? For one reason, we as believers must allow love to become our true motivation in obeying God.
To the Romans, Paul wrote, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10 ESV). And thus, he who loves his neighbor will not do to his neighbor any of the things forbidden by the law; that is, he will not steal, kill, commit adultery, bear false witness, and covet.
Therefore, his love fulfills the Mosaic Law. Yet Moses said, “You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today” (Deuteronomy 7:11) and that included the complete destruction of the various peoples of Canaan.
J. Vernon McGee offers some clarity to the apparent contradiction:
“Remember that God had said, “Thou shalt not kill.” That is a command against personal animosity, personal hatred which leads to murder. The Hebrew word is ratsach. Here they are directly commanded to destroy these people who were living in the land. It is an altogether different Hebrew word—charam, meaning ‘to devote (to God or destruction)’.”
Warren Wiersbe adds:
“People who do not understand the judgment of God or the awfulness of sin argue that God was ‘wicked’ to destroy these nations. If they understood the sinfulness of these pagan religions and the way these nations had resisted God, such critics would instead be grateful that Israel wiped them out.”
Remember, one thing we saw from the previous blog was that the Lord repays to their face those who hate Him (see Deuteronomy 7:10).
I like the ESV translation of this verse, “therefore be careful to do…” much better than the KJV’s “thou shalt therefore keep the commandments….” To me, it just seems to add a more personal and heartfelt vigilance to God’s desire for obedience.
With that need to be watchful, I constantly reflect on my carefulness to obey and continually ask what my motivation for obeying God is.
Is it fear or practice? Is it a “have-to” thing, or a “want-to” thing?
How it needs to be a “love” thing!
