God’s commands are not beyond us. He doesn’t make it impossible to reach Him. We don’t have to sail across oceans to find Him. The Word of the Lord is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. In Romans 10 Paul quotes this Deuteronomy verse and then explains that it is a matter of faith. “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (v. 9). All that God asks of us is to believe. He does not require us to do certain things to obtain favor with Him. He loves us unconditionally and sent His Son, Jesus, to die for us.
In John 6:28 the crowds ask Jesus, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answers, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (v. 29). It doesn’t mean we won’t do good works for God. Out of gratitude to Him, we certainly will. But we don’t earn our salvation. Jesus is the One who “crossed the sea” for us—in fact, crossing all the way to death and back—to proclaim His love for us.