Monday - Deuteronomy 6 - The Basics

Jesus quoted quite a bit from this chapter. And, why not? Some of the most fundamental principles of pure religion are addressed herein. Fear God! Love God!  Teach the truth!  Do right!  Sometimes we like to complicate matters and pretend like the Christian life is some deep and complex conundrum. Perhaps it soothes our conscience if we can imagine that our problems lie in the intricacies of doctrine and mysteries of the nature of faith. Such thoughts are nonsense though. Living by faith in God is the simplest of all lifestyles (II Corinthians 11:3).  It is a life of reverence, affection, clarity and obedience. God is not the author of confusion. He isn't trying to hide from His children (James 4:8).  Our faith walk becomes difficult when we try to mix our sinfulness with our saintliness. It's like oil and water. Naturally it's hard to do spiritual things in our own strength. Even harder is trying to use spiritual resources to feed our fleshly appetites. But, if we will just be willing to call sin what it is and to train our eyes on the Savior, what to do and when to do it will not normally be a great quandary. We get all confused when we try to connive and contrive ways of using God like a genie to get what we want. Such a strange strategy SHOULD cause the typical wrecks that most of us endure over and again.

Now, wrapped up in those spiritual basics is a great emphasis on the Word of God; revelation; Scripture; God's truth. Using Psalm 119 as a reference, we can find multiple synonyms for "the Bible" in Deuteronomy 6. God's commandments, statutes, judgments, promises, words, testimonies ... these are our source of strength and cleansing.