A Balancing Act

“Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.” Deuteronomy 13:4

Who is on the Throne

I can’t exactly recall when I learned of the concept and phrase, ‘throne of your heart’, but it is a good visual to make one understand – we are yielding ourselves to someone. Who is that – are we walking under our own steam, under our own flesh – so to speak – or are we yielding the seat of that throne to God. 

“Ye shall walk after the LORD your God,…”

How do we do that? First of all, we have to know Him. We first have to have a relationship with God by accepting his free gift of salvation. Then we truly have to get to know Him – through reading His book, the Bible. Within those pages we will find clear instruction and strength. Reading and studying the Bible needs to become a daily exercise, or we will definitely be walking in our own flesh. 

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” Psalm 119:105

“and fear Him…”

To fear the LORD is to have an attitude of reverence, of awe and to give Him honor and respect. And yes, there is a sense of fear – in that we know there are always consequences to every action. It is not a sense that God is a tyrant, many, many times He gives us so much time to learn, to understand and to get it right. We should definitely learn from His example.

and Keep His commandments…”

If we love God, we will want to be in right standing with Him. The ‘Ten Commandments’ have a vertical and horizontal application. Vertical, in that we are to strive to be right with God, horizontal in that we are to strive to be right with others. Therein, however, we do have to exercise His love and compassion. We wish to walk right with God and we also wish others to do so too. Therefore, when we pray, we should pray that we and others will come to an understanding of God’s will, to draw closer to Him and to put on His characteristics.

“and obey His voice…”

Again, we can truly only know God’s character and His will through His word. Then, we can become closer by praying; yielding every thing to Him. When we understand His character and His will we will know that our daily lives are not to ourselves, that we are to exercise love and compassion towards others.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Galatians 5:22,23

“and ye shall serve Him…”

We serve God now, not out obligation of His law, but out of love. We are no longer bound by the law, we are free, redeemed through Christ. This is not a contradiction to the first verse. The law was to point us towards Him, we are free now through Christ and we serve him, obey him through love for Him.

“and cleave unto Him.”

There’s no doubt, we need God for salvation and we need Him for every day living. The best way to draw closer to Him is through daily Bible reading and prayer. It’s now a relationship. The wonder of it all is that God chose us, loves us despite knowing all we have done, all we are capable of doing. He had no respect of persons, He saw that all of us were lost without Him and needed Him. To God, there’s no degree of sin or disobedience – all separate us from Him. But God, there are so many times we read those words in the Bible; But God, chose us, gave us the tools to live this life, and best of all – Himself. 

Choose Him today; Choose to walk close to Him and Choose Joy by letting Him lead your life and sit on the throne of your heart!