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Love the Lord your God


Today’s Scripture is from Deuteronomy 6:4-9

“4Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7Impress them upon 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. 8Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”

There are so many things to love about this passage! Verse 5 begins with a command – and then gives steps which hopefully lead to doing it. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart (the Hebrew word here does mean heart and mind) and with all your soul and with all your strength.” The most powerful part of this command is that it involves God wanting a personal relationship with us. Yes, God wants to be feared and respected…but he wants those things done because we love him. We love him, and so we continue reading Scripture and learning, until His words are truly on our hearts. It would be so nice if that happened instantly and permanently, but it doesn’t! God knows us all too well, and so he continued with his advice – teach the words to your kids. Talk about the words. Think about them. Live them.  And begin and end each day with prayer. Not only do this, He says, but write those words on your hands and heads, and have them written on every house.

A man at my church had insight into a figurative view of tying the words on your hands and binding them to your forehead; the symbols on your hands are what you DO, and the binding of the words on your foreheads is what you THINK. This helps clarify my literal view, which in the present times would lead to some interesting tattoos, or gadgets. Jewish men have what is called “tefillin,” which are two small black boxes with black strips attached to them. Tefillin are wrapped around the arm seven times, and the straps on the head are adjusted so they fit snugly. (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/tefillin.html)  Part of the Scripture written on them is Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Those bible verses above also serve as a prayer (Shema) – said at Temple services, throughout the day, at funeral services, etc. In addition to this, Jewish people have written at least part of the Shema on their houses. Think of how your daily life would be different if every time you looked in a mirror you saw the words, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…etc.”  Or, if every house you entered had the same reminder? So, although I think this literal view would help me remember God’s commandments more on a day to day basis, I must content myself with the figurative view. This means without visual reminders, I need to consciously think about God’s command several times a day so that my actions align with what God has desired.

Closing Prayer: Heavenly Father, I know it is your will that I love You with all my heart, all my soul, and all my strength. Please ingrain those words into my heart so that even though they are not written on my hands, or my forehead, I still remember those words daily. Help my thoughts and my actions inwardly, and outwardly focus more on You. Please help me teach my child the same practices so that he learns to love You as well. 

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