Moses is giving his last speech before he dies.  In this speech he will remind the nation of Israel of all the great things that God has done for them and he will remind them of God’s laws.  Much of the book of Deuteronomy is a restatement of the laws of God.  And here in our verse for the day we see Moses making a very important statement.  In a very simple statement Moses describes what our response to the laws of God should be.

First, we are told not to add to or subtract from these laws.  God’s laws, commandments, and statutes are complete.  They need nothing added to them.  There is nothing that man can say that can add anything to what God has said.  All man can do is to attempt to explain to others what God said.  And even in that man has to be very careful that his explanation lines up with the Word of God.

There is no part of God’s word that is not necessary.  If you subtract anything from God’s Word, you are making it incomplete.  Every word is there for a reason.  Only by examining all of God’s Word do you get a complete picture of God.  If you leave things out of what God said you have a lesser view of God’s holiness.  God is jealous of His holiness and anything that diminishes it will be met with His displeasure.

God’s word is absolutely perfect and complete.  It needs nothing and it has nothing extra.  It contains everything that we need and nothing in it is unimportant.  The only way the Bible can be viewed is completely.  Anything less than that will cause you to view God in a way that cannot help you the way that you need to be helped.

Moses concludes this exhortation with a very simple instruction of what to do with the laws of God; ‘Just obey them’.  How simple is that!  We tend to spend too much time trying to understand the theology and prophetic aspects of Scripture when the most important thing that God wants us to do is obey Him as He has revealed Himself in the Bible.  We need to understand Scripture well enough that we can obey it.

Don’t complicate God’s Word!  Don’t diminish Scripture!  Just do what it says!  If we would spend more time obeying Scripture and teaching others to obey God, there would be less conflict in the church and in ministry.  Jesus, help us to see the Bible as a work of absolute perfection to be held in awe and reverence and to be obeyed absolutely.

Listen to the Audio version of this devotional.

Read: Deuteronomy 4:1-49; Luke 6:39-7:10; Psalm 68:1-18; Proverbs 11:28