DAY 171 - BIG PICTURE IN A YEAR - THE LAW
YOU MUST OBEY MY LAWS AND BE CAREFUL TO FOLLOW MY DECREES. I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD.
Leviticus 18: 4
Reading: Exodus 34: 1; Jeremiah 31: 31-34; 32: 38-40; Mark 10: 5; Romans 2: 29
"I am the Lord, your God"
What phenomenal words. God says this 29 times in Leviticus – “I am the Lord your God”. As we discussed yesterday, God was not trying to force the Israelites to comply out of their own strength – He knew that they could not live up to His laws. But He wanted them to know that He was their God. He wanted them to look to Him for care, provision and protection. And He gave them all that they would need to establish themselves as a nation: His presence (tabernacle), His law (word), priests who would minister His word to them, and the land that He had promised. But He wanted the law to be written on their hearts. God is a jealous God; He wanted them to have their hearts turned towards Him – He wanted their love.
The law that God gave Israel was never supposed to just be rules written on tablets of stone. God wanted them to love Him truly with all their hearts, souls and minds.
In the same way, the Bible should not be a rulebook to us. God wrote His Word down so that we might read His story and realise that He is “God with us”, that He loves us and that He lives inside of us.
It is right that you study the Bible to understand what it is saying, and as you do so, the Spirit will guide you into all truth. There are a number of ways that you can get more of God’s word into your heart. One of them is to read these devotionals and to read your Bible. Make sure that you are immersing into a body, the church, where you can hear the Word preached, study the Word together, and the Spirit can make His presence known to you through the gifts that He distributes to His people.
Steadfastness is not a mystery - it comes when you do these things regularly. then you will know God and know who the Lord is in your life.
Prayer
Thank You, Lord, that You have given me Your Spirit, Your Word and Your body. I choose to immerse more and more into these things so that You can sanctify me, mature me and reveal more of Yourself to me.
For the family
It’s important that your children know the many ways in which they can get to know more about God. Discuss the Holy Spirit who speaks to their hearts and teaches them about God, about reading the Bible to understand who God is, and finally, attending church to learn from others about God and see how God wants us to live in love.
Play the Bible Adventure game with your children so that they can have fun with the people that they know from the Bible. You start the game with “I took a trip through the Bible and found Abraham.” Then your children take turns, repeating the phrase and adding the name of a person whose name begins with a B, C, etc. (the next letter of the alphabet). Play until you’ve worked your way through the whole alphabet.
At the end of the game, they may be interested in names that they didn’t know about – talk about who those people were and what God did in their lives.