Deut. 30:15-20 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
What is it with God? He has to tell people to love him and follow his ways, over and over again? What kind of God commands people to love and praise him?
We all know people with inferiority complexes. They need to surround themselves with people who are constantly telling them how great they are. We usually think there is something wrong with people like that. So how about our God? Is our God like the wicked queen in Snow White, who stood before the mirror and said, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is fairest of us all?" Is that the kind of God we have? If so, I seriously suggest you stop your Bible reading today and join a 1960's hippie commune. There are still a few up in Vermont.
Consider for a moment. Have you ever seen a great movie, read a fantastic book or visited a wonderful vacation spot? What do you instinctively do when you finish that experience? You tell everyone what you have just experienced. You don't have to tell a young man to praise the virtues of his girlfriend. That comes naturally. You don't have to tell a hiker to praise the countryside or a sailor to praise the majestic sea. People always praise what they enjoy.
What God is telling us to do here is to choose to enjoy him. He has designed us with an eternal hole in our hearts that is only filled with a relationship with him, the Eternal God. When we enjoy God and delight in him, that's when we will love him. In the end love is a choice. But if you want to love God, it comes through enjoying him.
The choice before us today is to focus our attention on enjoying God or being entertained by our world. Finding life and prosperity comes through choosing to enjoy God.
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