Deuteronomy Chpt. 6

Wow, this is a full chapter!!! Some very well known and awesome verses are found in Deut. 6. I'll quote my favorites:

⁵ And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

⁶ And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

⁷ And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

⁸ And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

⁹ And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

There's a lot there isn't there? I found it neat that so many times throughout this book God has Moses tell the Israelites the same thing over and over, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." I believe that maybe God knows that if we can remember and do that then the things that He asks us to do will be done because of the immense love that we have for Him. Also though, this shows that God wants ALL of our attention. He wants us to love Him with ALL that we have within us. That means that there would be no room for the things of this world, that HE would be our focus.

¹⁰ And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not,

¹¹ And houses full of all good [things], which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full;

¹² [Then] beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

¹³ Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name.

¹⁴ Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which [are] round about you;

¹⁵ (For the LORD thy God [is] a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth.

In these verses God is giving Israel a glimpse of the "good life" to come in the Promised Land. Everything will be there for them, already done. They won't have the back breaking work of preparing anything, He will have it there for them. But God, knowing His creation tells Moses to warn them to not get too comfortable in the "good life" and forget Who is was that gave them all of that. He knows our nature so well doesn't He? When things are easy and good we don't go to Him, depend on Him or cling to Him like we do when things are just a bit shaky in our lives.

But I see from verse 14 that God wasn't going to completely remove all temptations from the Israelites. He tells them to not go after the other gods that are around them. God could have, had He wanted to, erected a wall around His children so impenetrable that no temptation would ever infiltrate their land but He didn't. He left some temptations close by. Why? My guess is so that the faithfulness of the Israelites, who had seen miracles and wonders that you and I never have, could be put to the test. Remember, when it's too easy, we fail to depend on Him like we should.

So, my questions to you today are these:

• Do you love the Lord with all that is within you? Is He your focus day in and day out? Or is there something that has taken His treasured first place in your life?
• Have the blessings that He's so lovingly bestowed upon you today been the exact things that have caused your faith and dependency on Him to wane? 
• What temptations do you face today are those that He has allowed? Not all are from God, many are from our own wrong choices, but which were allowed by Him to grow you?
• Are you leaning on Him today?

Well, those are my thoughts on this awesome chapter. I really have fallen in love with the book of Deuteronomy. Thanks for reading.

Lovin' Learnin'