Having Hearts to Always fear and Obey God

 We are the only ones who have control over our own heart. We can have good hearts that are soft and pliable, so the Lord can mold us as He sees fit. We can have hard hearts that make it almost impossible for us to hear what the Lord is saying to us. We make the choice. God is not going to force us to listen to Him and obey Him. He wants us to do it by our own free will.

The children of Israel had hard hearts for a lot of their history. God had to punish them to soften their hearts. When they finally listened to Him, He was so glad. (Deuteronomy 5:29) God said, "Oh, that they would always have hearts like this, that they might fear Me and obey all My commands. If they did, they and their descendants would prosper forever." God delights in us when our hearts are right with Him, and He is happy to pour out abundant blessings.

A heart that fears the Lord is a heart full of admiration and respect for the Lord. It is a heart that is always ready to worship the Lord because that heart knows He is worthy of all worship. It is a heart that never wants to get on God's bad side for fear of what He will do to soften us up. Also, a good heart wants to obey all of God's commands, not just the ones we want to obey. It is a heart that is fully submissive to whatever the Lord says. That is the kind of heart we can choose to have. 

Then, when we make that choice, and we stick with it, God works in our life to make things go well for us and our descendants. Please, understand, we can't fear and obey God just so we will be blessed. He knows our hearts. He knows if we do what we do out of love or out of selfishness. He can't make things work well for us if we are doing things with the wrong motives. After all, He is looking at our heart. Let's decide to be the ones who love the Lord well and make Him glad to have us as His children.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Deuteronomy 6-8.