This week we are going deeper into Deuteronomy 6.  We’ve spent time looking at the world behind the text of this passage, what can we learn from the original context and the other things happening within the context of the Old Testament, you can click here to read that post. The last two days we looked at the world of the text seeing what the text actually says.  You can read those by here and here.  Today we will look at the world in front of the text for the first half of the chapter. What does this text mean for us today?

We are told through the Shema, this key teaching for the people of Israel – what our priority in life must be. God is God.  He is God above all else in the world. They are many things that will attempt to be God, but they are not.  Only God is God and only God deserves the loyalty and the love that God demands.

This leads to an interesting point – what does it mean to love God?  We are told that we are to love God above all else today.   But remember, love is not simply an emotion.  We have equated our love of God with our feelings towards God. But that is not the meaning of loving God with all that we are. This means that we are to choose God above all else in our lives.  To love God is not to “like” God or feel good about God, but it is to place our commitment to God above everything else in our lives.  Godness, that is a lot.

Their relationship with God defined everything about the nation of Israel. That is what it means to love God, to allow our walk with Him to be the defining relationship in our lives.  So, today do we truly love God?

This leads to the importance of this truth – we must teach it.  We teach it to our children.  This level of love and commitment, it cannot be just assumed.  It must be taught.  It must be taught with our words, but even more importantly with our lives.  If we tell our kids that God is first in our lives, but then there is no evidence that God is actually first in lives, we will in time drive them from God, because by our actions we have demonstrated that God is actually not first.  The teaching of our lives must match the teaching of our words. When that happens, there is truth and there is life and lives are transformed. We must teach the next generation with all that we are. Because in doing that, the people of God truly formed.

What are we teaching today to our children?

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