And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:6-9
“Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the LORD your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you—‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’
Deuteronomy 6:2
History and Context:
Today I found a verse that comes just a few verses earlier in the same chapter. This means there is not a lot of history that I haven't already shared with you. Like I shared in my first post, Deuteronomy is the final words of Moses to the Israelites and his focus was on the retelling of the law. He admonished them to continue to obey and keep the commandments which they had been given. He reminds them that if they do not keep the commandment bad things will happen, but on the other hand if they do keep the commandments then God's love will be passed on for multiple generations.
The Text:
Verses 6-9 - The thing that stood out to me in this text was how often we are to be talking about the Word. It doesn't say read the Word for fifteen minutes every morning. It says they need to be in your heart, then even more than that, talk about them, teach them, basically we should post the word everywhere so that it is always in fornt of our eyes. Moses is admonishing the people of God, 'Don't ever forget the law of God! Do whatever you need to do to keep it in your mind and heart at all times, and make sure your kids do the same.'
Verse 2 - This has a similar message. There is a lot of scripture about the Word of God and a lot of commands to keep it, but one thing I like about this one is that it specifically talks about passing it on to our sons and our grandsons. Not only our own children but we should take it on ourselves to make sure our children are passing it on to their children. How many preachers have you seen with rebellious children? How many pastors have you seen in which their children are the worst in the church? PK has become synonomous with unruly and rebellious. We need to remember this command, it's not enough to just follow the Word ourselves, we need to teach the Word to our children and talk about wherever we go. Another thing I want to look at is the word keep. In English today keep simply mean to follow, but in old english (and more importantly the word in Hebrew) it means to protect, guard. So this takes it a step forward. Not only do we need to follow the Word of God but we need to protect it and guard it.
The Challenge:
There is a lot of things that I talked about but it all starts with one thing. We need to keep the Word of God in front of our eyes better. So here's the challenge: Take a notecard, or a piece of paper, or whatever works for you and write a verse of scripture on it and stick it in your pocket. If you can't decide on a verse go ahead and take one of the ones that I have used today. Then as you go throughout the day, whenever you have a moment break, pull that verse out and read it, meditate on it, ask God what He wants to tell you through that verse. Then put it back in your pocket and continue your day until your next few moments when you do it again. Thsi will help keep the Word of God before your eyes throughout the day.
The Prayer:
Lord, teach me how to keep your Word. Help me to keep your word before my eyes and to teach your word to those around me. Help me to bring up my children (when I have them) in your Word. Lord, I want to follow your Word and I want to walk in your path. In Jesus' name, Amen!
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