Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
When Joshua writes this, he's getting near the end of his life. It's always interesting to read people's last words. It's interesting what Joshua says here.
You think about all the things that he could talk about—all the victories, all the moments of God's faithfulness, all of the mercies, all the different ways that God had shown Himself. Yet he brings it down to like this one central charge to those around him. It is: Love the Lord your God.
A Central Theme Throughout Scripture
Of course, that theme has carried all throughout Scripture again in the New Testament: Love the Lord your God.
He doesn't give some military speech. He doesn't talk about political activism. He doesn't talk about the importance of even obedience per se or outward performance. He goes straight after the heart. He goes straight to the affections that someone has and says, Love the Lord your God.
God Is After Your Heart
That's because God is not looking for mere external behavior conformity. You know this, that God is after our heart. He is worthy of our heart. He is worthy of all of our love and all of our affection. Plainly, He requires it.
Where Love for God Works Out into Obedience
Where true love for God is, when there is love for God in our heart, certainly that is going to work out into obedience.
Notice something he says here. He says: "Be very careful." In other words, guard this. Be cautious. Your love for God is something that needs to be guarded. It can't be taken for granted.
Love Can Drift
It's easy for affection to drift, to just get into religious habits, to do the right things and not do the wrong things. In that, your warmth for God, your desire for God, your love for God can wane.
We can get busy. We can become distracted. We can get entertained. We can simply focus on morality while our hearts grow cool.
Guard Your Love for God
Joshua, at the end of his life, speaks with a lot of urgency and says: "Be careful to love the LORD your God."
Thomas Watson said something helpful. He wrote: "We must love God more for what He is than for what He bestows."
It is possible for us to love the gifts that God gives us more than God Himself. It is possible to want what Jesus brings and to want what God brings—like comfort and peace and hope. It's possible to want those things and to love those things more than loving God Himself.
God Is the Gospel
But Joshua, again, is calling us to love the Lord your God.
One author said: "God is the Gospel. God is the good news." The good news is God Himself—that we can be reconciled to God Himself, not what He does, not what He brings, but to the person of Jesus Christ. To be reconciled to God—that is our greatest treasure. Whom have we in heaven but You, O Lord?
Let this verse search you, let it pierce deeply into your heart and examine you. What most occupies your thoughts? What most occupies your heart?
The Christian life is a life with a heart that is captivated by God, that loves Him, that prizes Him more than anything.
My Challenge to You
Ask Him today to deepen your affections for Him, to steady your heart and to keep you from wandering.
