Deuteronomy is a re-statement of the law that God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai. As the nation of Israel was about to begin the process of conquering the PL, Moses rehearsed the law and explained its meaning.

Moses had just re-stated the 10 Commandments, a very significant summary of the entire OT law. In today’s section, Moses states another very significant summary of Israel’s faith, a passage often called the Shema, which describes what it means to love the true and living God alone.

This section of the text connects obedience to God’s law with love for God. If we love God, we must keep his commands. If we fail to keep his commands, it shows that we don’t love God. Or perhaps our love is insincere and shallow.

In our world today, many people claim to love God while at the same time openly violating God’s commandments. They like the idea of God’s love, but neglect or ignore God’s commands. They like to think that God is obligated to love them, but they do not like to think about their obligations to obey God. But we cannot separate love for God from obedience to God. As Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” If we don’t obey God, we don’t love him.

And love for God means that we worship a particular, specific God—the true and living God, the one and only God. He’s not like the false gods of the heathen. We worship Yahweh alone and no other gods. And because we worship the only true and living God, our lives are different from those who worship false gods.