Deut 6: 4-9

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (NIV)

When I first came on to this verse a few months ago, it popped up in life about six times in a matter of about two weeks. I knew, after the first time hearing it, that it must have had a STRONG significance. I was totally right.

This is a Jewish prayer, recited twice daily, called the Shema. It is described in my notes as 'the Jewish confession of faith.' It has become that for me as well in some ways. I often find myself reciting, or just mulling over, verses four through six.

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.

Verse four deals with the divinity and the profession that there is only One true God and that it is the God of Israel. (the Hebrew translation: Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad.) I can't get this part out of my head, which I am greatly thankful of. In idle moments, it comes up in my mind and I am left thinking about how great it is that our God is the One... There is no other, and He loves us much! Praise the Lord for that!

⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

This verse is seen many times through out scripture... But this is the origin of the phrase. Laid out in crayon for us is this idea of loving God with all that we are... Easy to say, easy to pretend, impossible feat to accomplish. To TRULY love God with all our heart, soul and strength would mean that we are sinless. In our current state, this fleshly existence, it is impossible. We have many great examples of people who strove with all they were to do this... John, Peter, Moses, David, Abraham... All fell short except the One who was wholly man and wholly God. The phrase "If my right hand knew what my left was doing" comes to mind in reference tot his verse... Take it for what the phrase is worth, but I feel it relates.

⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

We all knew about the Ten Commandments (should that be capitalizes?!) but I wasn't aware that Moses set eleven of them... Maybe he had more. This is the verse that makes it even more appropriate that God has put this entire passage on my heart so strongly... we are told to have it on our hearts! I am not one to memorize scripture... I try, but it is not something that happens easily for me, but this one... It was easy.

These are the three verses that I have really been meditating on out of the five. Have a great Tuesday.