Series: What God Requires of Us — Deuteronomy 10:12
Part One: Deny Yourself
Introduction: What Does God Require of Us?
The central text of this teaching is found in Deuteronomy 10:12, where the Word presents four precise instructions concerning what God requires of every man and woman who calls upon His name:
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”
These four instructions form a practical guide for the spiritual life. In this teaching, we focus on the third one: loving God. However, before studying how we learn to love Him, it is essential to understand what that love truly means.
What Does It Mean to Love God?
One of the most common mistakes in the life of faith is understanding love for God in emotional or sentimental terms. The Holy Scriptures do not call us to love God with human feelings or passion. The love God requires is defined on His own terms, not ours.
To love God is to surrender. It is commitment. The Lord Himself expresses it in Luke 6:
“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Therefore, when Deuteronomy 10:12 commands us to love God, what it is demanding is active commitment — a surrender that is reflected in concrete action, not in declarations. It is not enough to say, “I love Him; I am willing to do anything for Him.” The life of faith consists of action, not words.
Love for God Is Learned and Can Grow
No one is born with the capacity to love God. The natural tendency of every human being is to drift away from Him, as the Scripture clearly states:
“…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
But there is good news: love for God can be learned, and even more, it can grow. Two texts from the apostle Paul confirm this:
Philippians 1:9: “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment.”
2 Thessalonians 3:5: “Now may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patience of Christ.”
Love is not static. It can increase, develop, and deepen. But this does not happen through willpower or personal decision alone. It happens when men and women do what God has established in His Word for that love to grow.
This is one of the most frequent mistakes in the Christian life: believing that it is enough to say, “I have decided to love God” or “I have committed to loving Him.” The apostle Peter is the most eloquent example of this. He declared with full conviction:
“Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble… Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You.”
And yet, he denied the Lord three times. It is not about disposition or personal resolve — it is about obeying what God establishes in His Word, through the power of His Holy Spirit.
Jesus’ Instructions for Learning to Love God
In the teachings of Jesus, we find three specific instructions for learning to love God. This teaching addresses the first one. The remaining two will be studied in the next session.
First Instruction: Deny Yourself
Matthew 16:24 records the Lord’s words: “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.””
This is the first instruction: deny yourself. The degree to which a believer denies himself is the same degree to which he learns to love God. It is a directly proportional relationship: the greater the self-denial, the greater the intensity of love toward God.
What Does It Mean to Deny Yourself?
The word “deny” appears in the New Testament with two meanings that complement each other:
1. To disown: “I do not know who you are talking about” — exactly what Peter did when he denied the Lord.
2. To reject: To repudiate, to refuse to acknowledge as one’s own.
When Jesus tells us to “deny yourself,” He is calling us to disown and reject ourselves in practice — not just in theory. It is not about repeating a religious confession such as “that is no longer who I am” or “I left that life behind,” because those words, without real action, produce only guilt, not freedom.
Self-denial involves an active detachment from the Adamic nature. The apostle Paul expresses it with clarity in Philippians 3:
“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ… I consider them rubbish.”
That is what it means to deny yourself: to treat as loss everything that feeds the old man.
Why Is It Necessary to Deny Yourself?
The Relationship Between Love and Forgiveness
Luke 7:47 establishes a foundational principle: “Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
Love and forgiveness are proportionally related: the intensity of the forgiveness experienced determines the intensity of the love. Whoever has not been deeply impacted by God’s forgiveness cannot love God deeply.
The Relationship Between Love and Being Children of God
1 John 3:1 adds another dimension: “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!”
Love determines the intensity of the experience of being made children of God. Not all believers experience that reality to the same degree, because not all have the same intensity of love. And the intensity of love depends on the impact of the forgiveness received.
Many believers, week after week, hear a message, are moved, ask for forgiveness, and fall back into the same patterns. Why? Because they are living in guilt, not in forgiveness. The cross of Calvary meant total, complete forgiveness — without percentages. The Lord did not forgive 75% of anyone’s sins; He forgave everything. But that forgiveness cannot be fully enjoyed as long as the believer refuses to deny himself, because he continues living according to his Adamic nature — even if he has been part of a congregation for years.
Being part of a congregation is no guarantee. What determines the capacity to love God is the genuine, practical willingness to deny oneself.
What Must We Deny?
1. The Root of Bitterness
Hebrews 12:15 warns: “…looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.”
Deuteronomy 29:18 presents the same image: “…lest there be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood.”
It is important to note that both texts are not talking about a poisonous leaf, a branch, or a fruit — they are talking about a root. A root reaches down to the very source of the water. When the root is contaminated, everything that flows from it is contaminated.
This image illustrates what happened in Exodus when the people of Israel arrived at the waters of Marah — whose name means “bitter.” The plants surrounding the spring had roots that reached the source itself, poisoning it. That is why the water was bitter: it was not a surface problem, it was a root problem.
A common mistake is identifying bitterness only with sadness or depression. But bitterness is not necessarily reflected in a person’s mood. It can dwell in the most joyful, charismatic, and outwardly positive person we know. Bitterness is revealed in the inability to love.
A person with a root of bitterness cannot love God, because the very foundation from which their life flows is poisoned. They may attend church, read the Bible, pray, and even have good intentions — but there is an internal resistance that prevents them from moving toward everything God requires of them.
To learn to love God, it is necessary to deny every form of contamination that comes from a root of bitterness: anger, resentment, wrath, sustained offense. This is why the apostle writes:
“Be angry, and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your wrath.”
Do not let a day pass without renouncing that bitterness — without pulling out the root that is poisoning the source.
2. Personal Desires, Preferences, and Ambitions
1 John 2:15-16 states clearly: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — is not of the Father but is of the world.”
Denying yourself means renouncing your own preferences, desires, ambitions, dreams, and aspirations when they are feeding the ego, pride, vanity, or arrogance. James 4:1-3 addresses this directly:
“Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have… You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”
This does not mean that a believer cannot have goals or dreams. It means examining honestly what those aspirations are feeding within him. Many prayers presented before the Lord are aimed at increasing personal vanity, pride, arrogance, or envy — at nourishing the old man rather than glorifying God. God does not answer those prayers, not because He is indifferent, but because they are oriented in the wrong direction.
3. Fantasies and Imaginations
The prophet Jeremiah warns in chapter 13:10: “This evil people, who refuse to hear My words, who follow the dictates of their hearts…”
And in Jeremiah 18:12: “…we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart.”
There are men and women who build their spiritual life on fantasy — projecting an image of success and prosperity that does not reflect their reality, claiming achievements that do not exist, and confusing faith with positive thinking or the visualization of goals.
Much of what is presented today as faith is nothing more than fantasy. Techniques such as “visualize what you want, put a picture of it on your wall, declare it over your life and claim it” come from philosophical movements foreign to Scripture — from prosperity gospel teachings or motivational philosophies that have nothing to do with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Scripture does not call the believer to build fantasies, but to do the will of God. Matthew 7:24 summarizes it clearly: “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
Conclusion: Toward the Life of Christ in Us
The first instruction for learning to love God is clear: deny yourself. Deny every root of bitterness. Deny your own desires, preferences, and ambitions that feed the old man. Deny every fantasy and imagination that substitutes your own will for God’s.
The destination of this self-denial is expressed in Galatians 2:20:
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
That is the goal: it is no longer I who live. Not because we have declared that the old man is dead, but because in practice, through action, we have denied him completely. Only then does Christ live in us, and only then can we love God with all the intensity His Word demands.
In the next part of this series, we will study the other two instructions Jesus gives us for learning to love God.
— Amen —
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