Thursday, June 5, 2014

The Fear of the Lord

The People of God Set Priorities
Hope and Confidence Come from God

Trust God's Promises

Deuteronomy 6:17-25

The Message
13-19 Deeply respect God, your God. Serve and worship him exclusively. Back up your promises with his name only. Don’t fool around with other gods, the gods of your neighbors, because God, your God, who is alive among you is a jealous God. Don’t provoke him, igniting his hot anger that would burn you right off the face of the Earth. Don’t push God, your God, to the wall as you did that day at Massah, the Testing-Place. Carefully keep the commands of God, your God, all the requirements and regulations he gave you. Do what is right; do what is good in God’s sight so you’ll live a good life and be able to march in and take this pleasant land that God so solemnly promised through your ancestors, throwing out your enemies left and right—exactly as God said.
20-24 The next time your child asks you, “What do these requirements and regulations and rules that God, our God, has commanded mean?” tell your child, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and God powerfully intervened and got us out of that country. We stood there and watched as God delivered miracle-signs, great wonders, and evil-visitations on Egypt, on Pharaoh and his household. He pulled us out of there so he could bring us here and give us the land he so solemnly promised to our ancestors. That’s why God commanded us to follow all these rules, so that we would live reverently before God, our God, as he gives us this good life, keeping us alive for a long time to come.
25 “It will be a set-right and put-together life for us if we make sure that we do this entire commandment in the Presence of God, our God, just as he commanded us to do.”
 
For Reflection
Follow the rule of love so that you are a compassionate, seeker of what is just and true.  Judge your actions by a God-centered standard and ignore the seductions of self-indulgence.  This means that you will not become a prisoner to the common wisdom, enslaved by the culture in which you live.  This is the incarnation of salvation.
 
Pray
that you will follow the will of God.  Pray that you will have the wisdom to identify God-centered choices.  Pray that you will be obedient in service to the will of God.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please post comments here.