Tuesday, May 24

Tuesday

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. - Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Do you want to make an impact for Christ on the people in your life?  Do you want to influence your children, your spouse, your neighbor, your co-worker, etc. to know and love God?  This passage tells us how that happens.  The context of this passage in Deuteronomy is clearly the family, however, we can make broader applications to almost every aspect and relationship in our lives.

The first component of living a life of influence is to keep the first priority first!  (see yesterday’s devotional) Deut. 6:5 – “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”  In other words, you cannot give what you do not have.  The very best gift you can give to the people in your life is to obey this command – Love God!

There are many contemporary Christians who have an immediate negative reaction when they hear words like “obey” and “commands”.  There is an assumption that this will automatically lead to legalism.  Obedience can become legalistic when people do it outwardly to look good before others, but their hearts are far from devotion to God.  Some of the Jews, for example, obeyed verses 8 and 9 quite literally.  They wore these verses in little boxes strapped to their hands and foreheads, and they put them in a little box by their doors and on their gateposts.  But they missed the true heart of the passage, which is that the Word of God is to permeate every area of life. 

However, the Scriptures tell us to love God with all of our heart, soul and strength.  In Biblical language, the heart was the center of who a person, the soul encompassed the entire person, and strength implied willful intention and effort.  So, loving God does not mean feeling sentimental about Him.  It does not mean having a warm fuzzy feeling during Sunday morning worship.  Loving God means obeying Him.  Loving God means putting forth the effort to learn about Him and to understand what pleases Him. 

This is why we are told to talk about the commands of God…

“When you sit at home” – this means your private life.

“When you walk along the road” – this means your public life.

“When you lie down and when you get up” – this means your entire waking life!

This is why we are told to…

“tie them as symbols on your hands” – this means your actions.

“Bind them on your foreheads” – this means your thoughts.

“Write them on the doorframes of your houses” – domestic life

“and on your gates” – civic life (the implication is city gates)

Look over the above list and try to answer the following question…

Where should we NOT be thinking about, talking about and trying to apply the commands of God?

The answer is – Nowhere!  There is no place in our life that God’s law and God’s love do not apply.

Now here is a tougher question – What area of your life is currently not being brought under the influence of the commands of God? 

Oh Lord God, help us not to live compartmentalized lives, but to open ourselves entirely to You and to Your Word – Amen.


Jeff Frazier