The Alpha of Duty

UV2993/10000 The Alpha of Duty
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man
Ecclesiastes 12 v 13

Scripture sums up the whole duty of man as a creature is not just to believe in God but to fear God. To fear God is to fear the consequences of evil or of being away from the source of all goodness in this universe. To avoid evil brings us understanding. It makes us wise and competent in all aspects of our lives. When we fear God, we keep His commandments to love Him with all our hearts and to love our fellow man as we love ourselves. When we fear God, we delight in both His commandments and His promises and precepts. Such wisdom and grace will add both quality, productivity and longevity to our lives. It teaches us to be just in all our affairs, not to behave in an ungodly way or to attempt to obtain dishonest gain.
The Lord will satisfy the desires of the ones who fears Him. He will save them and hear their cry for help . He will bless them and make them a blessing. When we fulfil our duty or obligation to God, we will not fail in our duty to man, whether it is to our own family, our neighbours or all those we encounter in our lives. When we fulfil our duty to God, we discover the purpose of our lives. Having found the purpose of life, we are focussed on pursuing and attaining the purpose. The Lord adds His grace or help to fulfil the purpose. The power of the Creator and the Saviour and of the Holy Spirit are made available to us to enable us to fulfill the purpose of our creation and our redemption in Christ. Normally, when we are continually engaged in doing our duties, we tend to get drained, tired, bored with the sheer drudgery of it but when we do our duty to the Lord, we enjoy the process or the experience. We get renewed, restored, revived, energised, transformed, empowered and equipped.

When we fear God wholeheartedly, we are humbling ourselves before Almighty God. We are acknowledging that He is sovereign in our lives, that nothing happens by chance or accident in our lives. In so doing, we are trusting the Lord for all the unknown aspects of our lives. When we truly revere the Lord, we will be watchful or careful in our thoughts, words, actions, habits, relationships. We end up doing whatever we are doing as diligently as possible and entrust the things that we cannot control to the Lord. This attitude of the believer makes him both responsive and responsible, responsive to the Lord in all things and responsible for all that lies in the human province to do. All one's duties to self, to family, to others, to working organisation, to nation and to humanity are subsumed in one's duty to God. These duties are fulfilled on a higher plane and with greater efficacy than if one were to focus only on these temporal duties