Today’s Podcast
Today’s Scriptures
Today’s Bible reading plans include:
Ready – Deuteronomy 6
Set – Deuteronomy 6; Mark 14
Go! – Deuteronomy 5-6; Psalms 43; Mark 14
Deuteronomy 6
Moses: 1The Eternal your God commanded me to teach you these rules and judgments so that you would obey them in the land that is yours when you cross the Jordan. 2 You are to fear Him and obey His rules and commands, just as I’m teaching them to you now. Do this your whole lives—you, your children and your grandchildren—and you’ll live in the land a long time. 3 Yes, Israel, if you pay careful attention and obey, everything will go well for you in that land flowing with milk and honey; and you’ll have many, many descendants just as the Eternal, the God of your ancestors, promised you.Moses: 4 Listen, Israel! The Eternal is our True God—He alone. 5 You should love Him, your True God, with all your heart and soul, with every ounce of your strength. 6 Make the things I’m commanding you today part of who you are. 7 Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you’re sitting together in your home and when you’re walking together down the road. Make them the last thing you talk about before you go to bed and the first thing you talk about the next morning. 8 Do whatever it takes to remember them: tie a reminder on your hand and bind a reminder on your forehead where you’ll see it all the time, 9 such as on the doorpost where you cross the threshold or on the city gate.
10 The Eternal your God promised your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that He would give you this land. When He brings you into it, you’ll live in beautiful and spacious cities you didn’t build. 11 You’ll have houses filled with good things waiting for you—cisterns to hold water already dug out of the rock for you, and vineyards and olive orchards that you didn’t plant. You’ll have all you want to eat and more. 12 When this happens, be very, very careful! Don’t forget it was the Eternal who brought you out of Egypt, where you were slaves. 13 Worship Him, your True God, and serve Him and swear oaths only in His name. 14 Don’t become devoted to any of the gods the people around you worship. 15 The Eternal your God is living right among you, and He’s a jealous God. He would become furious if you were unfaithful to Him—He’d wipe you off the face of the earth!
16 Don’t put the Eternal, your True God, to the test the way you did back at Massah.
Moses: 17 Carefully obey the commands, rules, and precedents the Eternal, your True God, has given you. 18 Do the things He considers right and good. Then everything will go well for you, and you’ll go and live in the good land He promised to your ancestors. 19 The Eternal will drive out all of your enemies, just as He said He would.
20 You’ll have conversations about this with your children in the future, and this is how they should go:
Child: What are these precedents and rules and judgments the Eternal our God commanded you to obey?
Parents (to your child): 21 We used to be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, but then the Eternal delivered us with overwhelming power. 22 He sent amazing and awful signs and omens to torment the Egyptians, Pharaoh, and his royal court—right before our eyes! 23 He brought us out of there so He could bring us here and give us the land He promised to our ancestors. 24 He commanded us to remember all these rules to show that we fear Him, our God, so that things will always go well for us and so that we can keep living here as we are now. 25 If we carefully obey everything the Eternal our God has commanded us, then we’ll be living as we should, in righteousness and in right relationship with Him.
Today’s Devotional
From today’s background scripture God might say:
What are the visible signs in your house that remind you of Me? What do you carry with you every day that helps you remember the My faithfulness to you? What do you do to recall My intervention in your life?
If you have a hard time answering those questions, maybe it’s time to think about how you decorate. I told Moses and the Israelites to keep visible reminders around them of My faithfulness to them. I wanted them to keep things around them to remember the milestones in their life that showed how I cared for them in the good and bad times of their journey through life. I wanted them to have things in their home that caused their children to ask questions about their significance that prompted stories about Me and My deliverance from Pharaoh and their freedom from their bonds to slavery.
I want the same for you. What do you see as you walk out the door each day to remind you that I will be with you all day long? How do your children know you serve Me and expect them to serve Me, too? Maybe a simple plaque that recalls Joshua’s declaration to the Israelites near the back door would remind them and you. “…as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Then talk about the plaque and what it means to you often.
Maybe pictures or painting or drawings of people in postures of prayer around the house will remind you and your children of the importance of prayer and communicating with Me often. Instead of hiding your Bible on a bookshelf, perhaps an open Bible visible on the kitchen counter will remind you to read it every day. What if you stuck a card with a Bible verse on your bathroom mirror every morning. Would it help you to remember to hide My word in your heart?
Look around the rooms in your house. What do you have that reminds you to talk to Me? What causes you or your children or your guests to ask questions about Me? How can you improve the decor of your home, your office, your car, anywhere you spend time so that you are reminded to carry out My commands, tell others of Me, talk to Me, witness for Me?
Everyday the media bombards you with it’s messages to lure you away from Me. Isn’t it about time you do something to remind yourself to remember Me? Look around. Make it happen. It’s not hard.
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