Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a video of the group Hillsong, leading an audience in worship and singing Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus … which is the best tool we have to take our eyes off of self and onto the Savior; and the most powerful way to do that is to focus on His word.
Highlight Passage Numbers 15: 39-40 [NIV] …
39 And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined, 40 and that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God.
… God, thru Moses, gives His people a tangible reminder of the importance of their obedience to God’s Commandments.
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Highlight Context -Numbers 15: 37-41 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… God gives a reminder to His people of God’s Law
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Reference Passage #1 - Psalms 119: 9, 11 [NKJV] …
22 How can a young man cleanse his way? … By taking heed according to Your word. … 11 Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against You.
… God’s word - deeply imbedded in our hearts becomes our reminder, our “tzitzit”… reinforced by God’s Spirit, of our ability to overcome sin by being obedient to The Word
Reference Passage #2 - Isaiah 26: 3 [NKJV] …
21 You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You , because he trusts in You.
… Our strongest reminder of God’s truth is keeping your mind focused on Him in our relationship with Christ. And in doing so we received His peace.
Reference Passage #3 - John 14:21 [NKJV] …
21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
… Knowing and keeping God’s commandment is the seal to our love for Him
Reference Passage #4 - Philippians 4: 6-7 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK… No need to be anxious when we focus, with thanksgiving, on God in prayer.
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread author, Jennifer Benson Schuldt, tells of how God gave His people, through Moses, a tangible tool and reminder to help them focus on the need to be faithful to God’s Law and to keep His commandments. Perhaps you’ve seen, in being around orthodox Jewish people, the “tzitzit” tassels extending from the shirts of males [see attached photo] or hanging from the wrist of Hebrew women.
These tassels were established by God through Moses in Numbers 15: 37-41, linked above, to be a reminder tool of the importance of His chosen people staying true to God’s Law, through His word. But really all these tassels can do is remind a sinful people that it’s impossible for them (US) to perfectly keep God’s Law. We need more in our hearts to be able to walk free of our own sinfulness.
And today’s ODB author, Schuldt, writes … God’s memory device for the ancient Israelites has a parallel for us today. We can look at Christ who consistently kept the whole law in our place and obeyed His heavenly Father (see John 14: 21). Having received His finished work on our behalf [i.e., the cross], we now “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Rom. 13:14). Keeping our eyes on God’s Son helps us to honor our heavenly Father [i.e., with righteous living].
And I maintain that God has also given us His best tool to avoid the flesh and to humbly focus on The Lord, as God’s word exhorts in Psalm 119: 9, 11 and Isaiah 26:3. And that reminder tool is to imbed God’s word deeply in our heart (through study, memory, and meditation), which in turn allows God’s Spirit to provide us with His enabling/empowering grace to overcome our sin nature.
And that’s why you find this humble believer, coming here EVERY DAY to take in more and more of God’s primary “reminder” of His willingness - and ability - to help me overcome myself and to focus on Christ through His word. And what I get out of this is … PEACE.
Do you want some of that peace? Well, let God’s word be your “tzitzit” reminder of Him everyday.
My Prayer Today: Oh Lord, … You word is my focus on You; and it leads me to Your peace. Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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