Deuteronomy 6:4-9 ESV
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 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.”
Love for God
Jesus Christ reinforced this command to love the Lord our
God when he gave an answer to a question, “Teacher, which is the great
commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the
great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your
neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the
Prophets” (Matthew 22:35-40).
And then Jesus told us that if we love him, we will keep
(obey) his commandments (New Covenant). And if we love him we will be loved by
the Father, and Jesus will love us and he will manifest himself to us (see John
14:15-24). And in 1 John 2:3-6 we read that if we say that we know God, but we
do not keep (obey) his commandments, we are liars. So, whether under the Old
Covenant or the New Covenant, we are still commanded to love God and to obey
him.
So, what does this love for God look like? If I love God
(Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit) with all my heart, soul, mind, and
might, that is a mighty tall task, but it is not one that I can do in my own
power and strength. Even the ability to love God is a gift from God, as is the
faith to believe in Jesus, and as is the gift of our salvation. But it is
something I must put into practice in the strength and wisdom of God. And it
involves full surrender of my life to Jesus Christ to do the will of God with
my life.
It means I am fully committed to my Lord Jesus Christ, to
follow him wherever he leads me and to do whatever he requires of me. For I am
his servant. It means I don’t have divided loyalties. He is my only God and he
alone is the one I give my worship to. I am fully his and he is mine. My life
is dedicated to him and to his service. I want to obey him because I love him.
I want to do what pleases him. And I don’t want to do what displeases him. For
I am so grateful for all that he did for me on that cross at Calvary.
On Your Heart
Now, verses 6-9 are not repeated for us in the New Testament
in these same exact words, but in principle this teaching is also repeated for
us in the New Testament (New Covenant) teachings.
For if we are walking in obedience to our Lord and to his
commands, then his word (his teachings, his commands) is on our hearts. For we are
those who are doers of the word and not hearers only (James 1:22-25). We don’t
just listen to the Word and then let it “go in one ear and out the other.” We
obey our Lord’s teachings. And we are not those who are just giving lip service
only to our Lord, but we are those who are daily dying to sin and to self and
who are following our Lord in obedience, in practice, in the power and wisdom
of God (Luke 9:23-26).
And if we are walking in obedience to our Lord, we are those
who are speaking the truth of the word of God, one to the other, that we might
encourage (exhort, urge) one another to follow Jesus Christ with our lives and
to obey the word of the Lord. And so that none of us might be led astray by
human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes of those who are teaching
lies as though they are truth. And so that none of us may be hardened by the
deceitfulness of sin. And in order to stir one another up to love and good
works.
[Rom 12:1-8; 1 Co 12:1-31; Eph 4:1-16; Eph 5:17-21; Col
3:16; Heb 3:13; Php 2:1-8; Heb 10:23-25]
And the Word of God, the gospel of our salvation, should be
something we talk about as naturally as we talk about anything else in our
lives. If we can talk comfortably about the weather, or about our careers, or
our children, or anything else that is going on in our lives, if truly we love
God and his word, shouldn’t his word be just as comfortable to talk about in
the course of every day natural conversations with other people? We all should
be sharing the Scriptures with others on a regular and consistent basis.
And I see verses 8-9 more figuratively rather than so much
literally. For our hands represent our deeds, the things that we do. And our
foreheads represent our minds and our thinking. And our eyes symbolize our
insight and discernment and wisdom. And our homes can be our lives, and our
gates can be any entry points into our lives and minds which then impact our
deeds. The word of the Lord should be uppermost in our minds, our hearts, our
thinking, our lifestyles and in all our deeds.
Great
is The Lord!
An Original Work / June 12, 2013
Based
off Various Scriptures – Ps. 57:10; 89:1; 145:3; Jer. 32:19;
La.
3:22-24; Da. 9:4; Lu. 21:27; Ep. 1:19; Tit. 2:13; 1 Jn. 3:1 (NIV ’84)
Great is the Lord! He has done wondrous things.
Great is His love reaching up to the heav’ns.
His faithfulness reaches up to the skies.
Of His great love, I will sing evermore.
Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise!
Truly His greatness no one comprehends.
Great are His purposes; mighty His deeds.
His eyes are open to the ways of man.
Great is the Lord! His compassions ne’er fail.
Great is His faithfulness. I’ll wait for Him.
He keeps His covenant of His great love
With all who love Him and do what He says.
Great is the Lord! He is coming in pow’r.
His saints will wait for Him; their hope secure.
How great His love He has lavished on us,
That we should be called the children of God.
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