Our Daily Bread Today Deuteronmy 6 ++

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

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Deuteronomy 6:1-25
A Call for Wholehearted Commitment
1"These are all the commands, laws, and regulations that the LORD your God told me to teach you so you may obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy, 2and so you and your children and grandchildren might fear the LORD your God as long as you live. If you obey all his laws and commands, you will enjoy a long life. 3Listen closely, Israel, to everything I say. Be careful to obey. Then all will go well with you, and you will have many children in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
4"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. F18 5And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today. 7Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again. 8Tie them to your hands as a reminder, and wear them on your forehead. 9Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
10"The LORD your God will soon bring you into the land he swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is a land filled with large, prosperous cities that you did not build. 11The houses will be richly stocked with goods you did not produce. You will draw water from cisterns you did not dig, and you will eat from vineyards and olive trees you did not plant. When you have eaten your fill in this land, 12be careful not to forget the LORD, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. 13You must fear the LORD your God and serve him. When you take an oath, you must use only his name.
14"You must not worship any of the gods of neighboring nations, 15for the LORD your God, who lives among you, is a jealous God. His anger will flare up against you and wipe you from the face of the earth. 16Do not test the LORD your God as you did when you complained at Massah. 17You must diligently obey the commands of the LORD your God—all the stipulations and laws he has given you. 18Do what is right and good in the LORD's sight, so all will go well with you. Then you will enter and occupy the good land that the LORD solemnly promised to give your ancestors. 19You will drive out all the enemies living in your land, just as the LORD said you would.
20"In the future your children will ask you, 'What is the meaning of these stipulations, laws, and regulations that the LORD our God has given us?' 21Then you must tell them, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with amazing power. 22Before our eyes the LORD did miraculous signs and wonders, dealing terrifying blows against Egypt and Pharaoh and all his people. 23He brought us out of Egypt so he could give us this land he had solemnly promised to give our ancestors. 24And the LORD our God commanded us to obey all these laws and to fear him for our own prosperity and well-being, as is now the case. 25For we are righteous when we obey all the commands the LORD our God has given us.'
FOOTNOTES:F18: Or The LORD our God is one LORD, or The LORD our God, the LORD is one, or The LORD is our God, the LORD is one.

Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living TranslationCopyright © 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

~Lena’s Journalin’ Today~
If, If, IF, that’s an awful lot of “if’s”, huh?
Is God conditional? In many ways, He is. Why? That was the way to bring salvation to a free willed being.
Free willed beings have and make choices, if there’s nothing to choose there’s no way to be saved. God made THE WAY and then explained the way in great detail, He showed the way, leads us in and to the way, gives us all of the correct answer to all of the tests.
So if our lives are some sort of God test (really, love of God test) and He gives us all of the answers, why is there hardship involved in doing His will?
Ahhh, there we are, right in that question lies the very answer, It is another’s will, not mine, not my original idea, not my way! Anything that is not my way becomes a contest, of wills. Pride rises up to say what Lucifer said to God in heaven-“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High!” Ya know that Proverb, “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall”? Who or what is that originally speaking of? THE original sin, bred into the atmosphere of heaven and earth. The destruction was rebellion against God and all of the chaos that came from its division. The fall was the manifestation of its division. Pride was/is the root of every sin. Haughtiness comes from ever thinking we know something on God.
When you REALLY think of that it is absurd, we know we don’t know as much as God, right? So why do we struggle at all with His will above our own? Pride tells us we want to be god. “We don’t want no body tellin’ us what to do!” That’s like your 2 year old telling you no, and he knows better than you do.
When one become somewhat God-wise, he will go wayyyy back and see what the root of that rebellion in one’s spirit stems from and he’ll see his need to be saved, and he’ll have oh such a desire to be a peacemaker for who God is, and a rebel against all that is against God.
Psalm 45:7 says 7 You love what is right and hate what is wrong. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you, pouring out the oil of joy on you more than on anyone else.
Of course we know this speaks of Jesus, and if we are Christians, we have received the answer we’ve waited for, to be like God, Christ-likeness is ours for the taking, for the being, so if we are like Christ, we think and act as He does without a whole lot of resistance to His spirit. If we are not resisting God, who and what are we resisting? I love this one, I’ve gotten it recently….we resist sin, we resist evil works inside of us. Not in what we see in others, because that is lording over and it is legalism. If we love what is right in us, and hate what is wrong in us, we are humbling ourselves before God, and the man who humbles himself before God has his enemies fought with and defeated for him.
James 4:7 says, “So humble yourselves before God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.” So we wonder why we struggle with sin, with the desires of our flesh, why are we warring against God, just as satan does, and why we resist God, rather than evil? We’ve not humbled ourselves before God and His word, to obey Him in His word.
Rather than taking on the nature of God in a submissive spirit, we’ve taken on the nature of sin and satan. Jesus told a whole lot of religious folks, who were not listening to His words, He was telling them of their need for personal change, John 8:44 “For you are the children of your father the Devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning and has always hated the truth. There is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Jesus was talking to guys who studied the word of God their whole lives and were very very religious. Their religion had become very self righteously based, they made up the rules as they saw them and there was a hierarchy of sorts and God couldn’t get into it! It was all man based , they felt they could work it out with God their way, they were trying to be saved another way, this is why in John 10:10 Jesus said, the thief comes up another way, he is a thief and a robber- a robber of what? Our true salvation, our true righteousness with God.
Man, when I see that, find that out, I rise up in holy anger, holy rebellion and I tell God’s and my enemy to get out of my face! The thing I’ve found out recently is the rebellion that tries to rise in me, almost everyday, against something someone is telling me to do, whether at work, or my kids school, or my church, or my friends, or the big one, my husband, or even bigger- God, was meant for the resisting of evil. The energy I exert, the adrenaline released as resistance tries to arise in me over some obedience thing, where my flesh nature wants to have its way or wants to explain God’s words to me away and excuse myself from it’s obedience, is meant to war against the entry of any and every evil that comes knocking at my door. I rise up with it and instead of saying no to God and a principle of God’s word, I say no to satan’s nature and yes to God’s. I use my flesh, in a way, to serve the purpose of God.
You’re blessed if you…., you’re cursed if you don’t…..Is that really true? YES, IT IS. Do we want to find out firsthand? Most of the time, but do we need to find out firsthand? No, it is up to us. God has given us His word on it, He’s offered us wisdom, He’s given us the strength of His Spirit, the power of His great love.
The real test is obedience, do we love God? Yes or no, there’s no half way or maybe. It does not mean if you’re not perfect you don’t love, it means if your heart is towards obedience, and you’re not trying to explain your requirement of obedience away, but rather you are seeking more and more to further obey, and give me the strength to obey, and show me how and I’ll do it, then you are being perfected and you are covered with the grace of salvation, by honoring the shedding of the blood of the Holy Lamb of God.
Love what’s right- God is right. Hate what’s wrong, evil is wrong. Obedience is right, Disobedience is wrong. Love obedience (to God), hate disobedience (to God).

Proverbs 27:17-19
17 You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another. 18 If you care for your orchard, you'll enjoy its fruit; if you honor your boss, you'll be honored. 19 Just as water mirrors your face, so your face mirrors your heart.
Psalm 122:1
1 When they said, "Let's go to the house of God," my heart leaped for joy.