Cover to Cover

Reading: Deuteronomy 5:23-8:20

Focus: Deuteronomy 6:4-9

There is a lot that you can tell about a person through the lifestyle that they choose to live. A survey of a person’s lifestyle can reveal a great deal about their values, their principles, and their priorities in life. A single businessman that lives in a studio apartment, with three cars in the garage (a saloon, convertible and off-roader), at the clubs and bars each weekend with a different girl on his arm each night… A married mechanic with three kids that lives in a three bedroom house, with one old rusty car, serving at the soup kitchen every Friday night, watching TV late at night with the kids on Saturday night, spoiling the wife to a special night out on Sunday… Extremes, maybe, but you get my point.

It is no surprise to find Moses exhorting the Israelites to live a lifestyle completely given over to God: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” With your entire being, Moses exhorted, love the Lord your God. He goes on further to instruct that it be passed onto their children, talking about them “when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” It was to be evident in the way that they lived, that their lives were sold out for the Lord their God, as they spoke, as they walked, as they ate, in all that they did—they were to live a life of loving the Lord their God.

There’s often a Christian cliche that is often passed around: “If you were to stand before a court, would there be enough evidence against you to convict you as a Christian?” Let’s look at it a little differently: Does your lifestyle and the choices you make show those around you that you love God and live for Him? What compromises have you made? Are you swayed by peer pressure? What have you swept under the carpet so that people will not see that you are a Christian?

Next Reading: Deuteronomy 9:1-11:32