With All Your Heart

Deuteronomy 30:1-3 When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, 2 and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, 3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you.
&
Romans 10:9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  
 
WE begin Advent – the season of expectation – with a view of the Lord God’s expectation for his people. This is the connection between Deuteronomy – a book of the law – and Romans – a letter from the apostle Paul to declare grace has fulfilled the law.
   See Deuteronomy’s (the Word) commands and promise in “take them to heart” and “when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today” Then compare with Romans’ words, “confess with your mouth” and “believe in your heart.” In the law and the gospel, God proclaims he has graciously prepared a way for a sinful world to be with him – a love that comes with a faithful heart.
   Moses wrote seven times in Deuteronomy to “Love the Lord your God.” Then he added this promise in Deuteronomy 30:20 For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  The Jews were to obey God from a heart love. This was the way to the life God had planned for them. Their unfaithful response led to their destruction.
   Then Jesus graciously came because “God so loved the world” (John 3:16a). Through the gospel, the Lord God now ignites his chosen people – the church – to have hearts of faith to confess our sins and to believe Jesus is the Son of God. Deuteronomy is a promise that required the Jews’ heart love to live with God in the Promised Land. Romans is the restatement of the promise that a faithful heart is God’s way for you to enter into the eternal Promised Land.
   God is Emmanuel. He has come to us through the law. He has come through the gospel. He is with us now in Spirit as we confess with our hearts we love and believe in him.
   Proclaim with your mouth and in your heart, “I am a sinner. Forgive me Lord. Jesus is risen from the grave and ascended to heaven. Jesus saves.” You will have life in the land God has forever prepared for you.
 
Prayer: As we await your Second Coming, Lord Jesus, we pray we do so with our hearts full of love, that we may joyfully live in your commands. Amen.