A Deeper Look at the 10 Hills:
Seek Truth
October 2014
And you must love
the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your
strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands
that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children.
Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are
going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear
them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your
house and on your gates.
-- Deuteronomy 6:5–9
Reflect
It is no accident Jesus quotes part of this passage when asked what the greatest commandment is in the Law and the Prophets. We instinctively understand the call to love God with everything we’ve got. But perhaps we have missed something by not knowing the broader context of this verse.
Moses directly connected loving God with following His commands, and there is a powerful truth here. What we love, we think about often. What we think about often, infiltrates our conversations. What we talk about, ends up reflected in everything from our fashion choices (tie them to your hands) and interior decorating style (write them on the doorposts of your house).
Nobody can accidentally fall into a life that is reflective of the truth we see in the Bible.
Rewind
In today’s world, there are many voices clamoring about, telling us the right way to live, the best food to eat, the political stances to hold, and the job to hold for the best future. But there is only one place we can find truth –the Bible. The words we find there will be contradictory to what we hear anywhere else. It will be very uncomfortable, because we cannot take an honest look at the Scriptures and walk away unchanged.
For this reason, if we are not careful we will slide into a place of mediocrity. We need to regularly refresh our minds with consistent reading of Scripture. This is why Moses tells us to repeat them over and over, to talk about them all the time, and to have physical reminders of the truth of Scripture.
React
Maybe tying Bible verses to our hands isn’t reasonable, but we must have practical reminders of God’s Word in our lives to stay spiritually sharp. Here are two creative ways to build reminders into our daily lives.
1) Daily Bible reading
Okay, maybe this one is not very creative. Any of us who have been in church for a decent amount of time have heard it many times. And yet, it’s tough to build into our lives, isn’t it? Perhaps we have been going about it all wrong. The Bible is not something we should necessarily read from the front cover to the back, and that might actually be one of the least interesting ways to approach it. (Raise your hand if you got tripped up in the chronologies in Genesis, or the chapters of prohibitions on meat eating in Leviticus).
Here are four other ways to consider reading the Bible:
· Switch the version you read in, perhaps even in a radical way. If the Bible feels “boring” to you, maybe it’s as simple as a change in the voice. The New Living Translation brings a wonderful freshness to Scripture. For a different and very personal interpretation of the Bible, The Message is fascinating. Perhaps even something more drastic is in order to recapture your imagination; if so, two suggestions would be The Book of God by Walter Wangerin or The Story.
· Read it aloud, in groups of people, chapters at a time. Something happens when we physically hear the promises of Scripture. Faith is stirred, hope is refreshed, dreams arise.
· Pick a word or topic of interest, and read every verse that word shows up in Scripture. Be careful not to be something that will overwhelm (like the word Lord), and then write one sentence to describe what you find in each instance. Once you have gone through each verse, look back over your notes and see what you learn. A great word to start with is “reconciliation”.
· Use an audio Bible and listen on the commute into work. This way, we have the opportunity to redeem our driving time, and the odds are our attitude toward our job will improve as well. There is even an audio Bible read by James Earl Jones. Everything is more interesting when read by Mufasa or Darth Vader (your choice).
2) Physically surround yourself with the Bible.
Reading Scripture is wonderful, but it takes more than cracking open the book to make a difference in our daily lives. We need reminders, and we need these reminders in places we will see them regularly. With just a little bit of thoughtfulness, we can make this concept a reality.
Think through each day, with the following question in mind: Where are the places I look every single day? For most of us, this would include the mirror. From there, depending on what the rest of your day looks like, options might be the dashboard of a car, the screen of a computer, or the kitchen sink. Once we’ve identified three–four places we know we will look every day, put Scriptures there. It doesn’t have to be fancy (though it certainly can be). A sticky note with Romans 8:31 on the mirror will do the trick. We all need to be reminded, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
-- Deuteronomy 6:5–9
Reflect
It is no accident Jesus quotes part of this passage when asked what the greatest commandment is in the Law and the Prophets. We instinctively understand the call to love God with everything we’ve got. But perhaps we have missed something by not knowing the broader context of this verse.
Moses directly connected loving God with following His commands, and there is a powerful truth here. What we love, we think about often. What we think about often, infiltrates our conversations. What we talk about, ends up reflected in everything from our fashion choices (tie them to your hands) and interior decorating style (write them on the doorposts of your house).
Nobody can accidentally fall into a life that is reflective of the truth we see in the Bible.
Rewind
In today’s world, there are many voices clamoring about, telling us the right way to live, the best food to eat, the political stances to hold, and the job to hold for the best future. But there is only one place we can find truth –the Bible. The words we find there will be contradictory to what we hear anywhere else. It will be very uncomfortable, because we cannot take an honest look at the Scriptures and walk away unchanged.
For this reason, if we are not careful we will slide into a place of mediocrity. We need to regularly refresh our minds with consistent reading of Scripture. This is why Moses tells us to repeat them over and over, to talk about them all the time, and to have physical reminders of the truth of Scripture.
React
Maybe tying Bible verses to our hands isn’t reasonable, but we must have practical reminders of God’s Word in our lives to stay spiritually sharp. Here are two creative ways to build reminders into our daily lives.
1) Daily Bible reading
Okay, maybe this one is not very creative. Any of us who have been in church for a decent amount of time have heard it many times. And yet, it’s tough to build into our lives, isn’t it? Perhaps we have been going about it all wrong. The Bible is not something we should necessarily read from the front cover to the back, and that might actually be one of the least interesting ways to approach it. (Raise your hand if you got tripped up in the chronologies in Genesis, or the chapters of prohibitions on meat eating in Leviticus).
Here are four other ways to consider reading the Bible:
· Switch the version you read in, perhaps even in a radical way. If the Bible feels “boring” to you, maybe it’s as simple as a change in the voice. The New Living Translation brings a wonderful freshness to Scripture. For a different and very personal interpretation of the Bible, The Message is fascinating. Perhaps even something more drastic is in order to recapture your imagination; if so, two suggestions would be The Book of God by Walter Wangerin or The Story.
· Read it aloud, in groups of people, chapters at a time. Something happens when we physically hear the promises of Scripture. Faith is stirred, hope is refreshed, dreams arise.
· Pick a word or topic of interest, and read every verse that word shows up in Scripture. Be careful not to be something that will overwhelm (like the word Lord), and then write one sentence to describe what you find in each instance. Once you have gone through each verse, look back over your notes and see what you learn. A great word to start with is “reconciliation”.
· Use an audio Bible and listen on the commute into work. This way, we have the opportunity to redeem our driving time, and the odds are our attitude toward our job will improve as well. There is even an audio Bible read by James Earl Jones. Everything is more interesting when read by Mufasa or Darth Vader (your choice).
2) Physically surround yourself with the Bible.
Reading Scripture is wonderful, but it takes more than cracking open the book to make a difference in our daily lives. We need reminders, and we need these reminders in places we will see them regularly. With just a little bit of thoughtfulness, we can make this concept a reality.
Think through each day, with the following question in mind: Where are the places I look every single day? For most of us, this would include the mirror. From there, depending on what the rest of your day looks like, options might be the dashboard of a car, the screen of a computer, or the kitchen sink. Once we’ve identified three–four places we know we will look every day, put Scriptures there. It doesn’t have to be fancy (though it certainly can be). A sticky note with Romans 8:31 on the mirror will do the trick. We all need to be reminded, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
