Week 7: The Kingdom of Old
As Abraham’s lineage grew into the nation of Israel, God gave them something unique: His law. When God gave Israel His law, it wasn’t just about rules, it was about relationships. At the heart of everything He asked of them was one simple, powerful command: love. Not the shallow kind we toss around casually, but a deep, all-in kind of love directed toward the God who created them, rescued them, and called them into something greater.
This kind of love wasn’t meant to stay private. It was meant to shape how they lived, how they treated people, how they built their communities, and how they made decisions. A society shaped by love would look different. And that was the point.
Read Deuteronomy 6:1-9 (ESV)
1“Now this is the commandment the statutes and the rules a that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
4“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.b 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Reflection:
What would need to change to build your life around love for something bigger than just yourself or your life?
Why would God make love the foundation of His Kingdom?
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