My New Challenge

 

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is 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. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
(Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

 

Last night was the Awana registration at my church. This past Saturday several on my Awana team attended the Awana leaders conference. Which I highly recommend by the way. It is so very easy for us to forget how important it is to receive training, to see things in a new way, to get new ideas from each other, or simply to be encouraged because you discover you are actually doing somethings right.

Anyway, at the conference one of the speakers went over the verse above. As I listened to the speaker I knew that God wanted me to share this at our Awana parent meeting. It was something that I needed reminded of as well…

If you follow my blog, you possibly read my post from yesterday. If you didn’t just look to the right and click on the Proven Path Ministries link and read “Stop Pointing The Finger At Them” (or click this link).

As the Awana speaker shared he broke Deuteronomy 6:4-9 down and I am going to do that as well, but with a little more detail.

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is 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. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 

Okay: Hear, O Nicole (put your name here, God’s word is personal, remember its a relationship not a religion, go face to face with God, I always replace my name with whoever God is addressing when I am seeking Him for guidance)! The Lord is your 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. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.

Okay God, what words? What words shall be on my heart? If I need to know what words then I look back… As I begin to scan Deuteronomy 5 I see that it is filled with the Ten Commandments. So I go back to Deuteronomy 5:1 and begin reading… then I get to the very last verse in chp 5 and read…

You shall walk in all the way which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you will possess.

Deuteronomy 5:33

Now I think, okay God “all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you” now when Moses delivered this to the people they had the Law only the Law… I have Christ. So what this says to me is that I have the awesome privileged  of not only having the Law on my heart but in my heart. And so I need to go and see what my Lord Jesus has commanded me also.

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 

Matthew 5:17-19 

Well okay God… I need the whole counsel of God on and in my heart. the Law, the Prophets, and the New Covenant. So I am going to start with Commandment #1 and learn how to obey it… but wait there is more. What were my instructions after you told me to “Hear“?

You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them… Deuteronomy 5:7

Okay God, I am to hear and then I am to teach. Well who am I to teach? And how am I to teach?  I am to teach them to my sons… well I don’t have sons, but I have daughters, so I am to teach my children, I am to teach the generation under me and I am to teach them diligently. What exactly does it mean to teach them diligently God? Diligently in the old testament Hebrew means to sharpen, whet, to be pierced, to teach incisively(penetrating clear and sharp).

For the word of God isliving and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Hebrews 4:12-13

(it’s nice to be on this side of the cross)

Well okay God, I take my child to church faithfully every Wednesday and twice on Sunday and I make sure they attend every special event… is that not teaching them diligently?

You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house

Oh okay God, I am to hear and to have your Word on my heart and then I am to diligently teach my kids when I sit in my house. Okay got it.

and when you walk by the way

Okay… and also when we walk by the way… so as we do life I am to teach them. As we drive to soccer practice, on our way to school, when we are standing in line at Wal-mart, while sitting in the Playplace at McDonalds… I am to look for opportunities to teach them how your commands apply to their every day life. Like when they get cranky and stubborn in the playplace because I said it was time to leave… that’s a perfect opportunity to remind them that they are to honor me and thier father and obey us. Or when they are playing at school and they want a new game that so-and-so has… a perfect time to teach them that we are not to covet our neighbors things but be content with what we have… okay God keep my eyes open to these opportunities.

and when you lie down

Okay God… bedtime goodnight prayers would be a great time for this… or even at the dinner table. We could just read a Psalm or a Proverb to them and talk about it a bit… Winnie the Pooh and Wiggles are nice and all that but good manners will not help my child stand against the attacks on their soul and mind…

and when you rise up.

alright that’s morning. So we can leave our Sunday school books or awana books or at least one Bible at the breakfast table and read and talk about God that morning and pray for You to help us honor you this day. And on those crazy mornings when we oversleep we can listen to a christian music station on the way to school and we can pick a song we are listening to and discuss how the lyrics line up with what God’s commands and how singing them throughout the day could keep us connected to God…

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.

Okay, this one is a little confusing… but I think You are wanting me to remember something like

Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father (Colossians 3:17)

and 

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8) 

So before we do it with our hands or let it enter our mind as truth we need to see if it lines up with what You would want us to do or what You say is truth… because Your Word is truth (John 17:17)

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Okay God. It’s my responsibility to guard my home. Before anyone or anything enters in my home I need to see if it lines up with Your will for me and my family. That means the books we read, the magazines we buy, the internet sites we visit, the tv shows we watch, the friends we have in our home and around our children, the things we allow in our home… they have to be cleared by You first. If I wouldn’t have it in the church I shouldn’t have it in my home…

And what I see God is that no one in my church can fulfill this command but me. My Pastor, my Sunday School teacher, my kids awana leader or Sunday school teacher, they are not there to teach in my home, or along the way, or when I lie down, or when I rise up… (unless of course you are married to the pastor  🙂)

So there is only one person who can fulfill this command of Yours in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and that is me.

Now precious ones, if you did go back and read my post from yesterday you saw how I believe that our nation is where it is because the church, those who profess to know Christ, have not obeyed God’s commands, or walked in His ways, or kept His statutes…

So this is my new challenge to you.

I challenge you right now to stop.

Stop trying to fix whatever you are trying to fix about you.

Stop and focus on just fulfilling this one command of God.

Beginning today Hear the word and put it on your heart. Read Deuteronomy 5&6 at least three times today.

Then go home… don’t make a big announcement… just tonight at the dinner table or at bedtime sit down with those in your home and open the Word. After your reading Deuteronomy 5&6 today is there something you need to talk about or teach your kids about… are their things that need to be removed from your home… a little at a time (don’t go for the book burning, trash all the video games and mags all at once, just purge a little at a time as you teach… that’s how God usually does it in our hearts isn’t it…)

Stop looking at your list of self-improvements you think you need to be a better parent, spouse, christian that you never seem to reach, and just focus on this one command to… Hear and  teach and let the Word of God do what you could never do no matter how hard you tried.