Lay up these words in your heart

"Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. – Deuteronomy 11v18

We all know that God’s word is important. Many of us have at least 2-3 Bibles around the house someplace. We may keep a copy in every room and in the car. We have a reading Bible and a church Bible. Today many of us have translations galore on our computers. We have Bibles on our phone. A pastor is liable to see half the congregation pull some time of electronic device out of their pockets when he says. ‘Open your Bibles to...’

We live an age where technology has given us great access to Bible teaching and preaching than we have ever had before. Not only can we assemble together in our local churches but in just a few minutes we can download podcasts of messages from all over the world.

We are a very privileged people. Yet we don’t seem to really be getting any more spiritual or having a much bigger impact on the world around us. In many places the church has never been weaker, more lukewarm, or more worldly.

Israel was preparing to go into a totally foreign culture. It was going to be tough. Part of God’s instruction to them was to hide God’s words in their heart and also always keep them visible.

We have done real well with the second part. God’s word is everywhere. The problem is though that we too often miss the first part. It is in our hands and is ‘frontlets’ between our eyes, but we have skipped over the heart.

In our own ‘foreign world’ we must live right amongst the residents. We had better be prepared. It is great to have the word of God visible, but unless it resides in our hearts it is not going to impact either us or those around us.