The First Commandment

The First Commandment

Deuteronomy 10:14-16

“Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.”

The solution to our stubborn hearts is a circumcised heart. God commands His people to acquire something which, on their own, they simply cannot do. We cannot “circumcise” our hearts. We cannot remove the encrusted wickedness that corrupts our souls and keeps us from taking the will of God, as revealed in His Law, as our priority in life (Heb. 9:8, 14). The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked: who can know it (Jer. 17:9)? And if we cannot know it, how shall we be able to repair it by removing all that wickedness which keeps us from loving God and His Law?

In order to bless us with His “good”, God requires of us something we cannot accomplish. And what God requires of us, He will hold us accountable to perform (Gen. 4:6-12).

In this series of In the Gates we present a detailed explanation of the Law of God, beginning with the Ten Commandments, and working through the statutes and rules that accompany each commandment. For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the practice of ethics, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.MyParuchia.com and click on our Book Store.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.