For your own good

Deuteronomy 10:12-21 TNIV

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord ’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigners residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.

My thoughts -

Leading up to this passage Moses has pointed out where the Israelites have gone wrong. He has pointed out their pride. He has pointed out their stubbornness. He has pointed out their sin that has brought God's wrath upon them to the point where Moses had to beg God not to destroy them all. He has informed the people that God has caused them to wander for forty years to teach them to depend on him and not on their own ability to acquire wealth. God even provided manna for them to live on miraculously. Moses has also explained that, while God is giving them this land, it is not because of their righteousness. They haven't been particularly righteous. They have been rather proud and rebellious.

So they've fallen short of what God desires. But what does God desire?

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord ’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

Has God given some arbitrary commands to see how obedient they will be? No, he has given the law "for (their) own good". Following God is a better way to be. We people can be selfish, heartless, cold, and cruel. God's law checks against the worst in us and demands that we care for others.

I love how Moses describes God starting in verse 17:

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigners residing among you, giving them food and clothing.

God is a God who cares for the weak, needy, and vulnerable. God, who is mightier than anything in creation, uses that might not to oppress and gain greater advantage but to lift up the weak and vulnerable. That is God's desire for those who serve him, to serve others.

Moses is telling the people to worship and serve this God who cares for the weak, marginalized, and vulnerable. We worship this same God today. An act of that worship is to serve that God by serving others. Who is more vulnerable in a patriarchal society than the fatherless and the widow? Who is more vulnerable in such a tight knit community than the stranger? When Moses points to God's desire to care for them and provide for them he is pointing to a desire to care for those who have the least, and no way to care for themselves. There's no profit margin in that. It's not good business. But it is goodness.

That is God's desire for us. To do good. To serve others. To provide for the needs of the least, the lost, and the broken.

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