For the LORD is our Life

Moses closes his third and final speech in Deuteronomy with these words:

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. 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. (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)

He gives the people an open choice, life or death. Immediately however, he urges them to choose life! Life is entering into the fulness of what God intends. Every day we too have the same open choice. Will we choose life? And if so, how do we choose life? The answer comes in the next verse: we choose life when we love God, listen to God and are loyal to God.

These three L’s – love, listen and be loyal – work together and reinforce each other. When we love God, we will spend time listening to him and will then express our loyalty to him by carrying out what he says.

Our God is a relational God and while there are many laws in the book of Deuteronomy, the essence of living as God’s people is not law, but love for him. Life, in the end, is not found in the law itself, but in the God who gave it, for (as the verse goes on to say) ultimately, the LORD is our life.

This is the nature of our God: he urges devotion to him, not because he wishes to restrict us, but because he knows that this is the path to maximum flourishing. He is our life and we find life in and through him.

Deuteronomy poses the question, How will God transform the hearts of his people? That’s a crucial question because God has chosen them to follow him and demonstrate his heart for humanity. When his people follow him, the nations will see and exclaim, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people” (Deut 4:6) and be drawn into God’s redeeming plan. And yet this question is never answered in the book, as Deuteronomy looks beyond itself. There are hints of a future untold, including the coming of a prophet like Moses (Deut 18:15).

Later, seeing Jesus at work, the Jews exclaim, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world” (John 6:14). Yes, this Jesus answers the question of how God will transform the hearts of his people. “For in him was life, and that life was the light of all people” (John 1:4). His life is given for the life of the world (John 6:51). Through him, we can be born again (John 3:3) and transformed from within.

Centring our life in Jesus is for life! He came that we might have life and have it in all abundance (John 10:10). And in this way, we have a life to offer to the world.