Tie them as Symbols on Your Hands

JUNE 2008

Most of us have our favorite Scripture readings we turn to for guidance. Many could be recited from memory. One such verse touched my soul this week. Deuteronomy 6:6 reads, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” What a powerful command. We are instructed to give all we are to the Lord. When we examine our daily lives, how do we measure up in this task? Do we truly give ourselves over to His Name? To His mission? We are to love our Lord with all that we feel, with all that we are, and with all that we do. Like a child loves his father. My children are young enough to be openly outward about their love for me and Brittny. They yearn for our presence. When one of us is away, they moan aloud, “I want my mommy” or “I need daddy to come home.” Could we say that we love God with such fervor? We are to love Christ Jesus as a bride loves her bridegroom. We are Christ's church. We are His bride. As we spend our day time separated from our spouses, we long for their presence. We yearn for security of being by their side. So too, our hearts should ache to be one with Christ. To be in Him. To serve His cause. Matthew 6:33 begins, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness...” We are called so many times to Love God first in every way.

This topic is very powerful. But what touched me this week was reading on in Deuteronomy 6. Moses lays out how we are to show our love for God. “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 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.” We are to always have our focus on God, and now Christ. We are to teach our children, our young ones the glory of Christ Jesus. We are to build up His lineage in them for His name's sake. They are to be heirs to His Kingdom. We must live for Christ in all we do. In our personal, private lives and outwardly as a sign to the world. We are to be an active, prosperous limb of His body at all times.

Finally, Deuteronomy 6:8-9 says, “Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.” What an image. We are to put the mark of Christ on our hands. More closely, we are to put the mark of Jesus Christ on the world through our hands, by what we do. By all that we do. We are to label ourselves at Christ followers. I think about how eager I am to wear a cap with my favorite sporting team, my favorite race car driver. What about your college choice? Are you a Ford man or a Chevy Trucks guy? What would it say to the world if we all walked around with shirts or hats that read, “I long to be in Christ.” What would it mean if we didn't have to; because everyone would know simply by what we do? By what we say, or left unsaid. By the way we interact with the world around us.

Let us all, as individuals and as the body of Christ, strive to show the world the glory, the promise we all have in Jesus. That we may grow His Kingdom. For “God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Amen

To Him Be All Glory!