Day 158 · Year 1 · The Story of Scripture
Love God with everything you are
The center of the Old Testament is not a rule but a relationship.
Today's passage
Deuteronomy 6:4-7
4Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.
5And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
6These words I am commanding you today are to be upon your hearts.
7And you shall teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Berean Standard Bible · public domain
Reflection
The Shema is what faithful Israel said in the morning and at night. It is striking that it does not begin with 'obey' but with 'love.' The Lord wants the whole person — heart, soul, strength — not just the parts that are tidy. And then Moses says: teach this to your children, talk about it in the house, on the road, when you lie down, when you rise. This is what 'walking with God' actually looks like. Not a sacred hour bolted onto a secular life, but love that shows up in ordinary conversations all day long.
From the great tradition · paraphrased
Benedict of Nursia · Medieval · 5th–6th c. · Italy
Benedict built whole communities around this rhythm — pray, work, eat, sleep — so that love for God would saturate ordinary hours rather than be confined to special ones.
Paraphrase only. Scripture, not any teacher, is the authority.
Think it through
- What does God want in verse 5, and how completely?
- Where are these words supposed to be repeated, according to verse 7?
- What part of your day has been walled off from being a place you love God?
A prayer to pray
Ask God to make one ordinary part of today — a commute, a meal, a chore — into a place where you actually love him.