The end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man.
– Ecclesiastes 12:13
Wow, what a conclusion to this book. After all that the author of Ecclesiastes has walked through in this world, all the pleasures and pursuits of this world that are ultimately empty, apart from God. In the end, the conclusion is clear. The end of the matter, all has been heard. It all boils down to this, fear God and keep his commandments.
Ecclesiastes 12:13 teaches that we were made to fear God.
This is the whole duty of man. This is the whole purpose of a person’s life, and this is the key to meaning in life… The key to purpose in life, to fear God, to live in awe of and worship of God, to seek him to know him, to walk with him, to keep his commandments.
This is what you are made for. This is what I am made for. When you think about it, this sounds very similar to Jesus summarizing all the law by saying the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength. That’s a picture of fearing God, walking with God, enjoying God, exalting God. And the second commandment is like, to love your neighbor as yourself and all the ways he commands us.
And so I want to encourage you today as you think about your life, let’s just pray, Ecclesiastes 12:13, that we would do what we are made to do today and tomorrow and the next day, to fear God and keep his commandments, that this would be the summary of our lives. Oh God, we praise you for making us for relationship with you. We praise you, Jesus, for making this relationship possible through your death on the cross for our sins and your resurrection from the grave for your ascension into heaven, and sending your Holy Spirit down so that we might trust in you for the forgiveness of our sins. Be reconciled to relationship with you, oh God, and filled with your Holy Spirit to live in relationship with you every day.
Ecclesiastes 12:13 encourages us to ask God to help us fear and obey him.
So God, may it be so today in each one of our lives. Help us today to fear you, to revere you, to worship you, to live in awe of you, to love you with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, to experience life and wisdom and joy and meaning, and purpose and peace and everything our souls need in relationship with you. God, help us to fear and love you supremely above all, above everything else in our lives today. Help us to fear and love and worship and seek you, and obey you to walk in obedience to your commands, trusting that’s what we’re made to do today and that’s what we’re made to do tomorrow. And by your grace, Lord Jesus, that’s what we are able to do now and for all of eternity.
So God, we pray in the language of Ecclesiastes 12:13, that you would help us to fulfill our duty today, what we are made for. Help us to worship you today in all that we do. Help us obey your commandments. And oh God, help us to lead others to know you… To experience purpose and meaning and joy and peace in their lives and relationship with you.
Prayer for the Wiwa People
God, help us to testify to you today. Lord, we pray for the spread of who you are and how much you love us to send Jesus to die on the cross for us, for the spread of the good news to the Wiwa people of Colombia, God, for 19,000 of them in the valleys of the Sierra Nevada mountains of North Colombia who live in extreme poverty, whose children suffer from malnutrition. God, we pray for the spread of your love and your grace and your mercy. And ultimately, the good news, the message of the gospel of Jesus to the Wiwa people of Colombia. That they might experience the purpose for which they’re made in relationship with you.
God, help us to spread the gospel to all the peoples of the earth… Even the most remote people groups… So that they might experience fulfillment and purpose and meaning and joy and eternal life in you. We pray all this according to your word in Ecclesiastes 12:13. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
