Today's Reading:Deut. 6:4-12; 8:1-20
"Love, Thanks, and Remembrance"
Focus Verses: Deuteronomy 6:4-8
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 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. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Insight:
God loves and calls people to love him. The love God has for us is beyond comprehension. He desires that we love him with our all-- all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength. Hiding God's word and treasuring his commands is vital to living out our love for God. If I truly want to love God with all I am, I must know God's word, desire to walk in his ways, and allow his commands to shape and form my very being and character.
This is something I want to impress upon my family and friends as well. I want to talk about it, pray about it, sing about it, and think about it every day with them. Even my house and workplace should be filled with reminders of God's love and calling for me.
Response and Action:
I will commit myself to reading the Bible each day and give prayerful thought to how the verses I have read can help me to love God and live in obedience to his will. I will talk with my family and friends about my faith, my desire to follow God, and the ways I am being challenged, shaped, and directed by the Spirit and the Word.
O God, help me to live for you and through you in thought, word, and deed. Help me to turn away from what is wrong and to do what is right. Help me to love you with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. Lead me away from temptation, and deliver me from evil. By the truth of your Holy Word and the power and grace of your Holy Spirit, lead, teach, transform, shape, and strengthen me, that I might delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your name. Through Christ, I pray. Amen.
Proverb for Today: Prov.26:12
"Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him."
New Testament for Today: John 14:23-24
23 Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. In Context: John 14:15-31
Resources:
How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
by Gordon D. Fee
