Deuteronomy 1:36

Because he hath wholly followed the Lord.

Following the Lord fully

You want to be a Christian, meanwhile your heart is set upon getting riches. You would store your mind with the learning and wisdom of the world, you wish to gain repute as a good talker in company, and a convivial guest at the social hoard. Ambition prompts you to seek fame among your fellows. Well, I shall not denounce any of these things, but I would use every persuasion to induce you who are believers in Christ to renounce the world. If Christ has redeemed you He has henceforth a claim on you as His servant, and it is at your peril that you take up any pursuits that are inconsistent with a full surrender of yourself to Him. Why many Christians never attain to any eminence in the Divine life is because they let the floods of their life run away in a dozen little rivulets, whereas if they cooped them up in one channel and sent that one stream rolling on to the glory of God, there would be such a force and power about their character that they would live while they lived. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Following the Lord fully

It ought to be the great care of every one of us to follow the Lord fully. We must follow Him universally, without dividing; uprightly, without dissembling: cheerfully, without disputing; constantly, without declining; and this is following Him fully. (Matthew Henry.)

Self-concentration on God

No man makes progress in any branch of human thought or science without this first condition--the habit of pinning himself down wholly to the subject in band, and rigidly restraining all other thoughts. You must bring your instrument to a point before it will penetrate, to an edge that it may cut; and only firm concentration of oneself on the matter before us will do that. Alas! how little of this patient prolonged concentration of interested thought on our dear Lord do even the best and devoutest of us employ! And as for the ordinary Christian life of this day, what a sad contrast does it present to such an ideal. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)