[Listen to an audio version here]
When we think about the blessings that God has given us in this land, it is truly amazing. We are blessed in this land with freedom, prosperity, and resources unparalleled in the history of the world. So many of the problems that our ancestors faced we no longer face or to a much lesser degree.
But that doesn’t mean that there are no challenges. What do we do with all this prosperity? How do we maintain it? How do we handle this technology that has made our life so much easier? How do we live in peace with other nations that have their own ambitions and different perspectives from our own? How do we deal with broader threats to health and economy that we have not yet experienced? How do we deal with the polarization that seems to inhibit us from acting in a rational way, grates on our spirits, and splits families and friends?
On a more personal level, we face the question of how to live a meaningful life? How do we deal with the pressures of relationships? And what about our children and their future? What about our children who now seem to be going off the rails? How do we manage our own declining health and learn to live within new limits? What about our church and its future?
What is our priority in the midst of this? If we go back 3,000 years to the book of Deuteronomy, we find the people of Israel facing a big challenge. They were going to go in and take a land that was already inhabited. They were going to have to fight many difficult battles in order to take the land that God had given them. Moses, their leader, was going to die, and they would have a new leader. As they thought about their situation, what was their priority? What was the most important thing for them to do? Our text gives the answer. Love God. That was their first priority. Moses taught them that their blessing did not depend on their skill or wisdom or life but on their connection with God. That’s what we want to see in this lesson, from reason, from Jesus, and from Moses.
Our First Priority According to Reason
If we do not believe that there is a God, then, obviously, loving God is not the highest priority. However, most of the world does and has believed that there is a God who is almighty and infinite and rules the world. If this is the case, then what could be more important than knowing Him and aligning our lives with who He is? He is the one who has made the world and made us. Doesn’t it make sense that we’d want to know something about Him?
You can see this in people’s lives. They try to make power, money, pleasures, or people the center of their lives. It really doesn’t work. It’s a fruitless quest. We need something much more stable to base our lives on. This center of stability is a relationship with God.
Humans throughout the world and throughout world history testify to this fact. Before they entered battle or took a voyage or began their reigns, they would sacrifice to the gods. Granted, they got badly wrong who God is, but they had enough sense to realize that their relationship to God was what mattered most.
If we believe the world is created by God and for God, then what could be a greater priority than knowing Him and loving Him? What Moses was teaching here in Deuteronomy 6 is what is in line with what is revealed to the hearts and minds of all people.