What does the Lord your God require from you? What does that mean? It means that we have a responsibility as human beings that have been created in His image to enter into His call on our life. I was reading a book called The Path of the Just, written in the 1800s. This book, The Path of the Just, was based primarily on a scripture from the Torah, which is Deuteronomy 10, 12. Let me read it for you at the onset. Hear the word of God. Now Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul? As I read this verse in the middle of reading this Jewish classic, it really hit me very powerfully. And I prayed, I said, Father, I’m a New Covenant believer. I’m saved by grace. I’m following you through Yeshua. But I feel you loudly speaking to me through this verse. So, Father, I’m just going to ask you, if you really want me to give a lot of time to studying this verse, Deuteronomy 10, 12, I’m just going to open the Bible. And as I open it, I’m just asking that you’ll cause me to land on a scripture that will really confirm to me that you’re wanting me to dwell deeply right now into Deuteronomy 10, 12 personally for my own life. And beloved, God obviously is not obligated to answer any of us this way. I have found in my own personal experience that sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t. But he does often enough that I’ll oftentimes, if I’m inquiring of him, I’ll simply say, Lord, is there something that you want to confirm to me about this through the word? So I open up the word, just wanting to find out if the Lord was asking me to dive deeply into Deuteronomy 10, 12 during this season. And when I opened up the Word of God just randomly, beloved, I was expecting that there would just be maybe a scripture that would confirm my question. But what happened even further than that was when I opened the Word of God, it just opened up to Deuteronomy 10, 12. The exact verse that I was asking the Lord whether He wanted me to dig deeply into, when I opened the Bible, I actually opened up to the page that Deuteronomy 10, 12 was on. That hit me profoundly and positively. powerfully, and I began to really digest it into my own life. And I want to release to you what God has released to me. First of all, let me say, and some of this is review, but it’s good to hear this again because we’re often not taught on these principles. We are not under the law as New Testament believers. We are God’s chosen, saved by grace through faith in Messiah Jesus. But beloved, just because we’re not under the law doesn’t mean that the law is irrelevant. In fact, the very opposite is true. Jesus said, do not think I’ve come to abolish the law and the prophets. I’ve not come to abolish, but fulfill. And he said, and everyone that teaches the principles in the law and the prophets will be called greatest in the kingdom of God. There are principles revealed to us in the law and the prophets that help us to understand who God is and how to walk with him. And Deuteronomy 10, 12 is a prime example of this. Now, as I begin to read once again, I want you to consider this was originally addressed to national Israel. That is the truth. And the church has not replaced national Israel. However, if you’re a Gentile and you’ve received Yeshua HaMashiach, who is the King of the Jews, into your life, you’ve been grafted in, according to the Word of God, into Israel. The church is now the spiritual Israel of God. We haven’t replaced national Israel, but the church is called the Israel of God, which means that we need to study carefully the words that God gave to national Israel because there may be prophetic application for you in your life right now. And this verse absolutely does. With that said, hear the word of God. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but beloved one, the word of God abides forever. Hear His Word. Now Israel, What does the Lord your God require from you? But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him. Sometimes today there is so much emphasis on grace that it’s as if the grace of God has obliterated the principle of fearing the Lord. But beloved, the grace of God does not obliterate the principle of having a healthy fear of God. Jesus said, don’t fear man that’s able to destroy the body. but rather fear Him, fear Hashem, fear God that’s able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Beloved, we should fear God. Fearing God is clean and it keeps us on track. This is why the book of Proverbs teaches that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. The fear of God, beloved, is essential to keeping us on track and having a healthy reverential concept of who he is. And then Moses went on to say, what does the Lord require of you? The second thing he said is, listen, to walk in all his ways. We need to be sensitive every day to the ways of God, how to walk as believers. how to walk as Christians. We need to have the mind of Yeshua. We need to have the word of God within us. And we need to not walk according to what we think, but we need to walk according to his ways. Again, I’m not going to go into that detail now because I covered it last week. Let’s go to the third thing that Moses said. Moses said we should, number one, to walk in God’s ways. What he’s looking for, what’s he requiring from us? Let’s go back at the beginning of the verse just to set it in context again. Now, Israel, that’s you and I today because we’re the spiritual Israel, okay? Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you? Let me say this again. What does the Lord your God require from you? What does that mean? It means that we have a responsibility as human beings that have been created in His image to enter into His call on our life. In other words, we can’t just go about our lives living any way we want to, doing whatever we please without regard for the fact that we’ve been created by God and for God, and God is expecting a response from us that brings us into alignment with him. God loves you and I, but he hasn’t made us robots. He’s looking for you and I to respond to his love. He’s looking for a marriage partner. Church, listen to me. He’s looking for people that will love him back. He’s looking for people that will respond to him out of their own free will so that they can love him. So God says, I’m looking for people that will have the wisdom to fear me. I’m looking for people that will desire to walk in my ways as a lifestyle. And I’m looking for people, he said, to love me. Hear it once again. I know it sounds redundant, but I want to get this word into you. I want to drill it into you. Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you? But to fear the Lord your God, number one, Number two, to walk in all His ways. And number three, listen, to love Him. God is looking for a marriage partner. That’s why the book of Revelation culminates in Revelation 19 with the marriage supper of the Lamb. The scripture says, blessed are those that are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. These are the true words of God. What is a marriage feast? What’s a marriage ceremony? Isn’t a marriage supper or a marriage feast a celebration, listen now, of love? Not just about the husband’s love for his bride and not just about the bride’s love for her husband, but about the love of both the bride for the husband and the husband for the bride both coming together, mingled together. You see, God loves us and He’s looking for us to love Him back. How do we love Him back? Number one, we choose to fear Him because we love Him. Number two, we choose every day to walk in His ways. Jesus said, if you wish to follow me, you must pick up your cross. Deny yourself. It’s not about what we think is right. It’s not about relying on our own mind or our own thoughts. It’s about knowing the Word of God, being sensitive to the Spirit, and choosing, listen, to clothe ourself with Messiah Jesus and walk in His ways. It means that sometimes we do what we don’t feel like doing. It even means we sometimes do what we don’t want to do because we want to walk in his ways. Remember before Jesus went to the cross at the Garden of Gethsemane, what did he do? He got down on his knees and he said, Father, if it’s possible, let this cup pass from me. He didn’t want to go to the cross. But then he said, but Father, not my will, but thy will be done.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’re listening to Discovering the Jewish Jesus and Rabbi will be right back. But first, I would love for you to download the Rabbi Schneider mobile app. When you do, you’ll have access to Rabbi’s daily devotionals, messianic content, and full-length shows of Rabbi’s teachings. We’ll also have a link to Rabbi’s teaching notes for each and every teaching. All you have to do is search for Rabbi Schneider in your phone’s app store and download the app today. Do you want to be an instrument for God’s work on the earth? Well, join us as a new monthly partner and receive a handcrafted shofar that’s made in Israel. This instrument will announce Jesus’ second coming one day. And by supporting these teachings, you’re helping prepare the way for His return. So would you prayerfully consider joining us? Visit discoveringthejewishjesus.com or partner with us by calling 888-MY-RABBI. And now… Back to Rabbi.
SPEAKER 02 :
I want to ask you, I want to challenge you. Are you walking in his ways? When you watch television, do you just watch what you want to watch? Or do you only watch what is profitable for him for you to walk in his way? Every day, all day long, we have a choice with the words that we say, with the words that we speak. What we watch, what we listen to, who our friends are, all these different connections with the world are opportunities for us to choose to walk in his ways. And Paul said, let no man be deceived. People that are living in the world will not enter the kingdom of God. Jesus said, strive to enter through the narrow gate for many will seek to enter and not be able. And so I want to encourage you. God is requiring us to have a holy fear of him. to walk in His ways, and now we’re at this next point. Listen, beloved ones, to love Him. It’s all about love, isn’t it? God wants us to do these things, listen, because we love Him. There are many times in life that I’m tired, I’m burned out, I’ve just been working hard, but the Holy Spirit’s been speaking to me about calling somebody, reaching out to that person, just blessing them, letting them know that I care. I do it. Listen why I do it. I do it because I love God. I say, Father God, I’m doing this for you. Sometimes it’s doing the hard thing. Sometimes it’s witnessing when we don’t want to witness because we know that when we do witness, it may break up the relationship. We don’t want to break up the relationship. Everything may be going smooth in that relationship, but because we love God, we’re committed to obeying Him, and so we witness. We lift up the name of Jesus into the conversation. We try to share a message that relates to the gospel, that gives hope. Sometimes people receive it. Sometimes they don’t. We can’t control that. But we continue to witness, listen, because we love God. And Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey me. Beloved, it’s a choice. Love is not a feeling. Love is not an emotion. You’ve heard this before. Love may have emotion. Love has emotion at times. But mark my words, love is not an emotion. All of us that are married know there are some times that we feel like serving. There are some times we feel the emotion of love. But many times we just love because we choose to walk in love. When Jesus went to the cross because of his love for the Father, He didn’t have an emotion of going to the cross that was all goose bumpy, but he did what had to be done out of, beloved, his love for God. We need to love him. Let’s continue on. The next thing that Moses says to us, we shall love him, and finally he says, and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. All these are related, loving him, walking in his ways, fearing him, serving him. All these, beloved, are connected to one another. Finally, Moses says here, the Lord is requiring, listen now, that we serve him with all our heart and with all our soul. I wonder, how are you and I serving God? I know many people, they attend congregations and all they do every week is they come and they sit there They stand up for the song, participate hopefully in the offering, listen to a sermon, they go home, that’s it. But you know, the Bible says that we’re to be engaged in a life of serving and that God has given gifts to the body, listen now, that we might serve the body. Jesus began to wash the disciples’ feet. And Peter said, no, Lord, I’m unclean, don’t wash my feet. And Jesus said, unless you let me wash your feet, He said, you could have no part with me. And then he said, as I have done to you, so also you do to one another, meaning we need to serve each other. And there’s so many ways that we serve. We serve our family. We serve our husband or our wife, our children, our grandchildren. We serve our employers and we’re doing all these things unto the Lord. We don’t do it as being man pleasers. We do it as being God pleasers. But I want to ask specifically right now, if you’re attending a congregation somewhere, are you serving? Do they need people in the nursery? Do they need people in the kitchen? Do they need people in security? Do they need help in finances? Do they need help on the worship team? Do they need help with ushering? There’s so many places, beloved, where pastors are continually reaching out to their congregation, looking for people to serve, And yet, oftentimes, there’s people that sit in their congregation for 5, 10, 12, 15 years, and they’ve never done anything to involve themselves in serving the community of believers where they’re attending. Now, I know that there are some here today, and you’re homebound. And listen, I’m not trying to put any guilt or condemnation on anybody, so please understand that. But I’m trying to inspire people to recognize that God is calling us to serve, to serve Him. And we serve him by serving the body and by being his witnesses. We serve him by loving people. Beloved, we serve him by cherishing our spouses. We serve him by giving. But we have to recognize that living a life unto the Lord, listen now, is living a life of service. I want to let you into a window of my life right now that some may consider spectacular and some may not even believe me, but I’m standing before the Lord right now and I’m telling you the truth. About three years after I originally came to the Lord, which was back in 1978, when Jesus supernaturally appeared to me in a vision, About three years after that, I was going through a significant time of repentance in my life. You see, I came to the Lord as a Jewish person without being oftentimes sensitive to some of the sins that the New Testament talks about. And so when I came to the Lord, I didn’t automatically just start living a Christian life. It took the Lord some time to help me to understand what that meant. And after I’d been walking with the Lord three years, the Lord began to convict me of some very specific sins in my life. And He was saying to me, it’s time to clean up your life in these areas. And so I was going through this deep season of repentance. And as I was going through this deep season of repentance, I was sitting in a chair one morning. And I remember very specifically, I was drinking a cup of tea and the tea had replaced the cigarettes, which I had just given up because the Lord had showed me that I was relying on cigarettes, which are really killing me, rather than relying on Him for peace. So I’d given up the cigarettes. I was drinking this cup of tea. I wasn’t expecting anything to happen. But as I was sitting in the chair this morning, the Spirit of God literally, visibly appeared above my head. Now, I didn’t see Him with my eyes because He was above my head, but I saw Him even more clearly, more clearly than I could see anything with my eyes. This wasn’t a thought. It wasn’t an imagination. It wasn’t a vague impression. It was supernatural life. The Spirit of Elohim, the Spirit of God Himself literally appeared above my head, much like happened in Acts 2, where the Spirit of the Lord appeared above the disciples’ heads in a tongue of fire. And then the spirit of the Lord, which appeared above my head, it was life. It was a spirit of life. It was in motion. All the colors of a rainbow were in it. Then he came through my head, took possession of my inner man. And then he spoke into me and I heard him audibly. And he said this exact sentence to me. He said, I am a servant. And then it was over just like that. I couldn’t have helped the experience along. I couldn’t have stopped it from happening. But Jesus was telling me that he’s a servant, that he lives in me, and that my life in serving him involves being a servant. Beloved, we’re called, first of all, to serve the Lord our God. and then to serve other people. Jesus said, let he that is greatest among you become the servant of all. I want to encourage you today, beloved. There’s a word of revelation in the Torah, in Deuteronomy 10, 12 today for you. God is asking us to respond to him by number one, fearing him. I’m talking about really fearing him in a way that causes us to not sin and shows our love for him. Secondly, God is telling us to clothe ourself with the character of Messiah and walk in his ways. Thirdly, the Lord is telling us, I want you to choose to love me. Love is not a feeling first. Love is not an emotion first. Love comes out of your will. The Lord said, whosoever will. And then the Lord said, and I want you to serve me with all your heart and with all your soul. Some of you have heard it before. It’s just one life and it will soon be past. And only what’s done, beloved ones, for Christ will last. Will you fear him? Will you walk in His ways? Will you love Him and will you serve Him? Beloved, the choice is yours. God loves us and He’s asking us to respond back to Him in like manner. I hope you’ve noticed that when it comes to raising finances for the ministry so that we can continue to proclaim God’s Word around the world, I really strive to not manipulate and to be clean. So the truth is today that it cost us a lot of money to be able to broadcast on television and all the other media outlets that we’re releasing God’s Word through, as well as the traveling that we do around the world. And I can’t do it, beloved ones, without your continued help and financial support. This is the way God ordained it to be. John said in one of his letters that men that are preaching the truth are worthy of the support, the financial support of the church. So I want to thank you for sending me out. And I also want to encourage you, beloved, to know that when you support the gospel with your finances, there is a reward that will come back to you because everything that we sow into the kingdom comes back pressed down good measure and running over into our lap. Thank you for your love and your financial support.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. And to give generously online today, visit discoveringthejewishjesus.com or you can also support Discovering the Jewish Jesus by giving us a call. Our number is 800-777-7835. And you know, I want to share with you that we’re honored to be partnering with a company that combines biblical stewardship with lasting kingdom impact. As believers, we’re called to be faithful stewards of what God has given us, including the legacy that we choose to leave behind. That’s why we’ve partnered with Free Will, which is an accessible estate planning platform that you can create a will that’s designed for your unique situation. You can also choose to give a guess what it’s free for you even if you decide not to but if you do you’re going to be ensuring that the gospel continues reaching souls and advancing god’s kingdom as we anticipate jesus return and if you’d like to learn more visit discoveringthejewishjesus.com click on the resources tab and then need a will i’ve went through this process myself and i do want to tell you it is absolutely easy if you don’t have a will It will help you get a will, and you really don’t have to leave any money to the ministry. It’s totally up to you. It just gives you the opportunity to do that if you’d like. So I encourage you, check it out today. And now, here’s Rabbi with God’s special and sacred blessing, the Aaronic Blessing. Rabbi?
SPEAKER 02 :
The words from the Aaronic Blessing in the book of Numbers chapter 6, verses 22 through 27 say, helps us to realize how good God is to you and I personally. So receive his blessing into your life, and then, beloved one, go bless somebody else in Jesus’ name today. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with his countenance. And the Lord give you, beloved one, his peace.
SPEAKER 03 :
And now in Hebrew. Yevarechech Yahweh, vayishmarecha. Ya’er Yahweh, h’navelecha, vi’chunecha. God bless you and Shalom.
SPEAKER 01 :
I’m your host, Dustin Roberts, and this program is produced and sponsored by Discovering the Jewish Jesus. Join us again when Rabbi Schneider gives us a rapid-fire overview of the Bible’s messianic prophecies. That’s Wednesday on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.
