Friday, August 11, 2017

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 -- On the Conclusion

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14


I like scriptures that try to sum up the gospel.  They *should* work, right?  Things like "O be wise; what can I say more" (Jacob 6:12), or "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them" (Matthew 7:12)... those should be daily mantras for us, summing up the whole gospel.  And yet we resist.  We nit pick, we justify, we ask for specifics so that we can work around them. :)  Instead of 10 Commandments, we need hundreds or thousands.

This scripture sums up the gospel by instructing us to show reverence to God (which is what "fear" usually means in the scriptures), and to keep his commandments.  Simple, right?  And it even gives a reason, which is a huge bonus.  The reason is that everything gets judged in the end, and we're going to end up on one side or the other... good or evil.  So, basically: pick God's side. :)

Today, let's try to take some of the simple summary advice of the gospel seriously.  Let's work on showing reverence to God, and on doing as he asks.  We could get into the deep, awesome reasons why, but today let's not question.  Let's just do it, and see how the conclusion works out. :)

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