 Key Verse
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might Meditation God’s covenant love is eternal, engaging, and enduring. Deuteronomy 5 describes the “stunning blend of law and love,” pointing forward to the finished work of Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the covenant law of God and took the curse upon Himself so His people may know the covenant love of God. Today’s reading details a faithful response to God’s covenant love, specifically to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might…” Love (ahab) has a wide range of meaning, used to describe love in marriage, family, and community relationships. In Deuteronomy, the word for love almost exclusively describes relationship between God and His people. Covenant love from God (see also 10:14-15) is the foundation of exclusive love for God. Love is not legalism, obeying God to secure acceptance. Love is not licentiousness, knowing you are secure and living for sensuality. Love is a living, dynamic, desire to live dependently on the Lord in every part of life and with all our being (heart, soul, mind, might- v. 5). Moses warns that either prosperity (vv. 10-15) or problems (vv. 16-19) may lead to dis-ordered love. The instruction to rightly order our loves, prioritizing loving the Lord, includes hearing and obeying to keep God’s commands from our heart and prominently displaying them as reminders, lest we forget God’s invitation to loving relationship. God’s covenant love is secure, Christians knowing that we cannot be separated from the love of God in Christ (Romans 8:28-39). Our response is to follow our Savior, prioritizing love for Him through hearing and obeying His word that we may have life, and life abundant (John 10:10). Today’s Reading “Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it,2 that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. 10 “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13 It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you--15 for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. 16 “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. 17 You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies and his statutes, which he has commanded you. 18 And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers 19 by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised. 20 “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ 21 then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. 23 And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. 24 And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. 25 And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.’ Richly Dwelling -Why is it significant to see God’s covenant love as the foundation of obedience, not legalism to earn God’s love? Where do you see the relational love God invites us to throughout today’s reading? -When do you forget God’s invitation to love and obey, more during the prosperity or problems of life? Why? -Jesus kept the law fully and fully paid the price of our disobedience so that as children of God Christians can walk in a newness of life. Where in your life do you need to respond to God’s love? Key Verse 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
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