Hear, O Israel!

[Christsfreeservant]

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on 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. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 NIV)​

When we study the Old Testament writings, we need to study them in light of the New Testament writings which are under the New Covenant. And Jesus taught New Covenant. Also, what was written to the people under the Old Covenant may not also apply to us under the New Covenant, but there may be parallels between the two. Much of what was written to the people under the Old Covenant is repeated for us under the New Covenant, just perhaps not in all the same ways. And that is the approach I will take.

Under the Old Covenant, God’s people were the Jews. They were the nation of Israel under the One and Only True God – Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For Jesus Christ was always with God, and he has always been God, and he was with the children of Israel of the Old Covenant, just not in physical form to where they recognized him as such. In 1 Corinthians 10:3-4 we read that the Israelites, in the wilderness, drank spiritually from the spiritual rock, Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is God: [John 1:1-36; John 8:24,58; John 10:30-33; Hebrews 1:8-9; Colossians 2:9; Titus 2:13; 2 Peter 1:1; Romans 9:5; John 20:28-29]

But when Jesus Christ gave his life up for us on that cross, and he put our sins to death with him, so that by faith in him we can now die with him to sin and live to his righteousness, he did away with the Old Covenant, and he made Jew and Gentile, by faith in Jesus Christ, into one nation, one people under God. The Jews who rejected Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior were cut out of biblical Israel, and the Gentiles who believed in Jesus were grafted into Israel, so Israel is now Jew and Gentile by faith in Jesus Christ.

[Genesis 17:7-9; Genesis 18:19; John 8:18-19,38-47; Romans 2:28-29; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 9:4-8,25-28; Romans 11:1-36; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 3:16,26-29; Galatians 4:22-31; Ephesians 2:11-22; Ephesians 3:6; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-16; Hebrews 8:6-13;1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 2:22; Jude 1:5; Revelation 2:9; Revelation 3:9]

But Jesus’ death on that cross, although it meant death to the Old Covenant, and the birth of the New Covenant, did not remove God’s moral laws for his people Israel (both Jew and Gentile by faith in Jesus Christ). All throughout the New Testament, under the New Covenant, we are taught that faith in Jesus Christ, which is persuaded of God, and not of our own doing, must result in us dying with Christ to sin and us walking (in practice) in obedience to our Lord. And if sin is our practice, and not obedience, we are not saved.

Thus, under the New Covenant, by faith in Jesus Christ, we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength. And to love God is to obey him, for if we do not obey him we do not love him and we do not know him and we are not of him and we are not in fellowship with him. Now this does not mean that we will never sin, but that we should have died with Christ to sin and we should now be walking in obedience to his commands as a matter of life practice, in the power of God.

And not only are we, by faith in Jesus Christ, to be obedient to our Lord and to his commandments under the New Covenant, but we should be teaching God’s commandments (New Covenant) to our children, and to our grandchildren (where allowable), but not in words only, but by how we live in daily practice. We need to be setting the right example before them as to what it means to be followers of Christ. And this does not mean that we will do this perfectly, but that this needs to be what we practice.

For we are not to be hypocrites who speak one thing with our lips while we live the opposite. We share Jesus Christ with others, not just with our lips, but by our actions. But our actions need to match with biblical Jesus and not with the “Hollywood” version of who they think Jesus was. And our actions are to be the same no matter who we are with, i.e. it should be natural for us to live and to speak the Christian life in every aspect of who we are and in what we do, in practice. This doesn’t mean we are perfect, though.

And when this says to tie the commandments of God as symbols on our hands and on our foreheads and on our doorframes of our houses and on our gates, if we do this literally and physically, as an outward show of righteousness, but we don’t live what we are professing, for it is for show only, then it is pointless. I would rather take this figuratively to mean that God’s commandments should be impressed on our minds and on our hearts and on our way of living as a matter of what we put daily into practice.

[Matt 7:13-14,21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 10:27-30; Ac 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,15-17; 1 Jn 3:4-10]

For Our Nation

An Original Work / September 11, 2012
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Bombs are bursting. Night is falling.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Trust Him with your life today.
Make Him your Lord and your Savior.
Turn from your sin. Follow Jesus.
He will forgive you of your sin;
Cleanse your heart, made new within.

Men betraying: Our trust fraying.
On our knees to God we’re praying,
Seeking God to give us answers
That are only found in Him.
God is sovereign over all things.
Nothing from His mind escaping.
He has all things under His command,
And will work all for good.

Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.

Men deceiving: We’re believing
In our Lord, and interceding
For our nation and its people
To obey their God today.
He is our hope for our future.
For our wounds He offers suture.
He is all we need for this life.
Trust Him with your life today.

Hear, O Israel!
An Original Work / March 5, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love