Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
I am so excited to share our Verse of the Day with you today, because this verse has been one of the most impactful verses in my life over the last year or two.
It's Deuteronomy chapter 13, verse 4. "Serve only the LORD your God and fear Him alone. Obey His commands, listen to His voice, and cling to Him."
Let’s break this down.
Serve Only the Lord Your God
The first point I want to focus on is "serve only the LORD your God." Think about all the people that you may perceive that you're serving. Could be a boss, could be a spouse, could be your kids. It could be a variety of different things. It could be people in the church, leadership in the church. This verse is so impactful when it says, "Serve only the LORD your God."
The reason for that is because the one we serve will dictate our level of service. We may think, well, that's not really the case. I can still—No. Really, whom we serve will dictate our level of service, because then we start to think, do they appreciate me? Do I trust them? Are they deserving of my service? Then we start evaluating, well, they don't actually really even appreciate what I'm doing. Wow, I don't even see a difference in them. So why should I serve? Am I really even making a difference?
That's why when we serve only the Lord our God, it's about serving Him and leaving the results to Him. That's why the question would be when we're talking about serving only the Lord our God and whom we serve: What motivates you to serve? You know, a lot of times, if we're honest with ourselves, motivation is recognition or the results. Am I making an impact? That's a huge one for me because that's the biggest thing I crave in my life—I want to make an impact. I want to make a difference.
When I see that I'm doing something that doesn't seem to be making a difference, it's like God has to remind me, David, are you serving them or are you serving Me and leaving the results to Me? That's why I love what Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, where he said, "I planted a seed, Apollos watered. But God is the one that causes that to grow." I just need to be faithful to plant the seed or water, or cultivate and do what God's called me to. I'm serving Him. Leave the results up to Him.
Fear Him Alone
Then it goes on to "fear Him alone." That's why it's so powerful in the Bible, because it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear is not a great thing we like to talk about, but whomever you serve controls your present and your future. A lot of times, when fear comes in, it's a fear of what happened in the past, the impact that will have in your present, and the unknown of the future.
Whoever you fear or whoever you serve controls your present and your future, because that's actually who we put in their hands, how we demonstrate or how we respond to the fear of the past, the present, and the future. When we're serving the Lord and we're fearing the Lord only, we allow Him to be the authority, the one that's controlling our present and our future, and how we reflect back on the past.
Sometimes it's the fear of failure that can creep in. Sometimes that's past failures that we allow to now impact and influence our current present situation. If we're actually fearing the Lord only, we put our past in His hands, our present in His hands, and our future in His hands.
Obey His Commands, Listen to His Voice
The next part: "Obey His commands. Listen to His voice."
My senior year in high school, we went to our state championship tournament. We won. We went to the state championship game. The stands were filled. Everyone was screaming, cheering, all this chaos through this game when good or bad things happened. I'll never forget this—I carried this with me for my whole life. My coach trained us so well, he would be able to talk in a regular voice and tell us instructions, and we would turn. Amidst all this chaos of cheering and yelling, we would be able to turn and listen to his voice, to give us instructions of what we were supposed to do.
I've carried that with me in association with all the chaos and all the noise of the world and life and the turmoil and things like that, that we so fine-tuned our ear to listen to His voice and obey His commands, His Word, allow this to be the loudest voice in our life.
Cling to Him
The last part says, "cling to Him." Listen closely to this because this is very important. Your location in life, seasons, or circumstances are not nearly as important as your location and proximity to Him. Let me say that again. Your location in life, seasons, and circumstances, are not nearly as important as your location and proximity to Him. That's why it's so important to cling to Him.
Jesus talked about how He is the vine. We're the branches. Abide in Him. Remain in Him. That's why I'd love for you to live out this verse, because it's so incredibly important. Serve only the Lord your God today. Obey His voice. Listen to His voice and cling to Him. May you live into that today and see what God has in store for you through this verse.
