This morning’s reading is ripe with implications for our families in the 21st century. And being a Christian Educator at heart these words below from Deuteronomy 6 resonate strongly with me.
1″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, 2that 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. 3Hear 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. 5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7You 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. 8You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:1-9 [ESV]).
If Moses were writing this to us today he’d say something like the following. When you are with your children put your cell phones and tablets away and tell them about God. When you go on trips sing songs and share Bible stories about Jesus. Have reminders in your home that trigger conversations about Jesus. Read God’s Word at the dinner table which means you all need to eat together.
We are reading a short Lenten devotional every evening at our dinner table. It needs to be concise enough that our daughter with Down syndrome doesn’t lose interest and yet deep enough that she gets something out of it — and her parents do too.
What are you doing to engage your children or grand children on a regular basis in the things of the Lord. Why not start following the teaching of Moses!
Sixty-six books in a year 