Photo Credit: Aquila
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Follow After Him

“You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him and keep His commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.” Deuteronomy 13:4

Did you notice the action words in that verse? Fear…obey…listen…serve…hold fast. At first glance these may seem conquerable, but when we delve deeper, these words are more difficult in action.

· Fear – to have a deep reverence for the Lord demands my humility.
· Obey – to be able to take His direction means I have to be thoroughly familiar with His commandments.
· Listen – to hear His voice requires intimacy in order to know what He sounds like when He speaks.
· Serve – to serve Him with wild abandon calls for complete availability to His promoting at any moment.
· Hold fast – to cling to Him with my entire self to the depths of my soul means I have to trust His sovereignty.

But we observe, God provided refuge for obstacles and impediments in the way of this arduous pursuit; and therefore the Psalmist says in 63:8, “My soul follows hard after you; your right hand upholds me.” (Psalm 63:8)

These words express our need of divine strength, in order that the soul may not merely commence, but also be strengthened to keep up the pursuit. When we insist on relying on our own strength, we soon grow faint and weary. Perhaps after the soul has been going forth in earnest and intense longing after God’s manifested presence, there is a continual reviving of God’s love and strength in our soul, enabling it to follow hard after him. Thus, “your right hand upholds me.” Just in the same way as the Lord strengthened Elijah to run before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel (1 Kings 18:46), a race he could not have performed unless the Lord had girded him with strength, so we can only “run with patience the race that is set before us,” and follow hard after the Lord, as he blessedly and imparts strength to our souls.

~ YC Chen