Happy Monday!

Happy Monday Girlies!

Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength. The commandments that I give you today are to be upon 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.

Reflection:
In what ways do you (or could you) keep the truth of the Scripture more readily available and accessible to you throughout the day?

What have been some of the greatest benefits of memorizing Scripture? How has God used His internalized Word in both dramatic and everyday fashion?


Saul was 13 years old he was considered a son of the law. Like an adult Jew he assumed all the religious responsibilities. During his morning prayers he started wearing phylacteries, called tefillin, during weekday morning prayers. Phylacteries are made up of two black leather cubes with long leather straps. Each cube held certain passages from the Torah written on strips of parchment. Saul wore one of the cubes on his left are facing his heart. The other cube was placed in the center of his forehead. The leather straps on the left arm were wound precisely seven times around his arm.
Code of Jewish Law prescribed that a Jewish man 13 years or older was to put on the tefillin at the first moment in the morning when enough daylight was present to recognize a neighbor at a distance of four cubits. Perhaps these practices seem very strange to us but we should appreciate their attempt to interpret Scripture as literally as they knew how.
Exodus 13:9 says annual observance of the Feast of Unleavened Bread was to "serve as a sign for you on your hand and as a reminder on your froehead, so that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth." You can see that for the strict Jew, the phylacteries were a literal act of obedience.
The left arm was chosen because it was ordinarily the weaker. They were to wear God's Word as a banner and shield over their weakness. We don't practice the outward espression of the jew, but we are wise to share the inward principle.
Saul would have placed the phylacteries around his forehead and arm in total silence. If interrupted while putting on the phylacteries on any given morning, he would have started the procedure all over again, repeating the appropriate benedictions. You see girls...a 13 year old Hebrew boy could not even get up out of the bed in the morning without remembering who he belonged to. As he wound the straps of the phylacteries around his head and arm, he was reminded of his binding relationship to his Creator. Soberly he assumed the responsibility of the one associated with God. The Law of the Lord was his life.

This really made me think this morning. I haven't been waking up in the morning remembering who that I belong to. Do you girls? Shamefully, I get up in the morning and just try to make it to the coffee pot quietly so that I don't wake up the kids, my main concern is just gettin through the first hour of my day without having to speak to anyone...I am NOT a morning person...
How do we bind ourselves like Saul did? He wound the straps of the phylacteries around his head and arm, as a reminder of his binding relationship to his Creator. It was a deliberate conscious effort everyday...Since we have started our Bible in 90 days, I have felt like I have made a deliberate conscious effort, till now...as soon as I am done reading...I move on to the next "task" of the day...God is more than a "task" that needs to be read or completed.
Psalm 19:10- They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.
God's Word is more desirable to us than gold, sweeter than honey...even sweeter than honey from the comb! We will stay hungry for it! We will be faithful also to share it with others, with our children! God said, " Teach a youth about the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it" ( Proverbs 22:6).

Let's pray together this morning:
Heavenly Father, we love you Lord! You are sweeter than honey from the comb to us Lord. We hunger for you continually...help us Father to seek you first thing in our mornings. As soon as our eyes open Lord, let us remember to whom we belong. Help us to stay in your word and teach it to our children and help us to be faithful to share it with others also Lord. Watch over us this week, keep us safe and healthy Jesus...Your so precious to us Father that words don't have the capacity to explain the love we have for You...in Your Holy Name we pray...AMEN...

I love you girls...don't you all forget that!

In Him WE Remain,
Shana