Today we are continuing our series about the importance of investing in others, especially younger generations. We’ve talked about beginning that investment by making sure our faith and relationship with God is something worth passing on to others. We’ve also talked about sharing God with others as we go about our days and surrounded ourselves with reminders of God and His Word. We’ve been looking at Deuteronomy chapter 6 and what God said about investing in the next generation in those verses. Today we are going to pick up in verses 10-13 which say:

“Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, then watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him and swear by His name.”

While these verses contain some specifics about the Israelites and what would happen when they entered into the Promised Land, the principle and warning apply to us as well. God knows us, His creation, well. He knows that as He provides for us and blesses us, like He was about to do with the Israelites, that we have a tendency to become complacent and take things for granted.

Just like the Israelites were going into a land where they would have all sorts of good things that they did not work for, we often have blessings in our lives through no effort of our own. We don’t control where we were born or who are parents are, yet both of those things often establish aspects of our lives. God, directly or through others, often blesses us in so many ways. Sometimes we recognize those blessings, and other times we are so focused on what He hasn’t given us that we miss so many of the good things He has. Oddly enough, the more blessings we have received, the more it seems that there is a temptation to take the blessings for granted and either ignore God’s generosity in our lives or be discontent and disappointed because we expect more.

God knew this about the Israelites and He knows it about us as well. That is why we see His warning and command in verses 12-13: 

“then watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him and swear by His name.”

As we are following God and seeking to invest in others, we need to remember this. We need to stay focused on God. It is so very easy to get distracted by life’s demands, pleasures, and disappointments. This is something that we struggle with and something that those we are investing in will struggle with too.

We need to be intentional about not forgetting God and what He has done for us. Some of that starts with surrounding ourselves with reminders like we talked about last week, but the very act of investing in others also helps us to not forget. If we are spending time teaching others about God and His commands, it makes it easier for us to stay focused on God. It also helps the next generations learn more about Him too. When we leave it up to others to share God’s message with those He has placed in our lives, we aren’t just neglecting them. We aren’t just neglecting to do what God has told us to do. We are also neglecting our own relationship with Him. We are neglecting our ability to not forget Him and all that He has done in our lives. The more the tell our story, our God story, the better we remember it ourselves.

God’s design for investing those around us is amazing just like Him. Doing what He has asked us helps others, helps us, and helps our relationship with Him. So don’t forget. Who will you share your God story with today? Who will you invest in today?

This week we are continuing our series about the importance of investing in others, especially younger generations. We’ve talked about beginning that investment by making sure our faith and relationship with God is something worth passing on to others. We’ve also talked about sharing God with others as we go about our days. We’ve been looking at Deuteronomy chapter 6 and what God said about investing in the next generation in those verses. Today we are going to pick up in verses 8-9 which say:

“You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

We know from our previous articles that God was giving these instructions through Moses to the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land. During the Second Temple Period, after the return of some of the exiles from Babylon, some in the nation of Israel began to take these verses literally. They began putting mezuzahs on their doorposts and wearing phylacteries, or tefillin, on their arms and foreheads. These small boxes held parchment with scripture passages. I don’t know that these were supposed to be taken that literally, and even the Israelites generally only wore them during prayer times.

In American Christian culture though, our modern equivalent probably looks more like decorative signs from Hobby Lobby and shirts with Scripture or Christian sayings. Whether or not you like wearing Christians t-shirts or decorating your house from Christian bookstores, it is the principle in these verses that needs careful attention. Just like the previous verses emphasized the importance of teaching others about God and His commands throughout our entire day and everywhere we go, these verses give us another important insight about how we can help invest in the next generation.

As we read Deuteronomy 6:8-9, we see that we are to surround ourselves with God’s Word. Whether we take the verses literally as the the later Israelites did or look at the general principle, we see that we should be intentional about placing God’s Word and reminders of God’s Word all around us. We can do this for those we are investing in as well.

We live in a day and age where the options for Scripture reminders are endless: bookmarks, signs, stickers, bumper stickers, toys, clothing items, jewelry, bags, pillows, and the list goes on. If you can think of it, you can make it or have it made. The number of Scripture themed products that are available with the click of a button seems unending. These can be great tools, but we can even use simple things like post it notes or index cards and make our own Scripture reminders.

The point is, it doesn’t really matter exactly what types of reminders you are using or where all you are putting them. It’s more important that you actually use them. Surround yourself with reminders of God and His Word. Find the reminders that work the best for you. Place them in spots that you will frequently see, and change them up from time to time so they don’t just become a part of your routine background.

As you invest in the next generation, or others in general, and teach them about God and His Word, consider the reminders that might be most helpful for them. Some of the reminders that you use, might be great to share with others, but different types of reminders might work better for others as well. If you know someone who likes to draw, you might suggest that they consider making their own artwork as reminders. If someone spends a lot of time in the car,  helping them find reminders to put in that location can be good. Do they like jewelry? Do they read a lot? Do they spend a lot of time looking in the mirror? Is a lot of their time spent in the kitchen? Once again, the sky is the limit. The options are only limited by your imagination, but getting to know those you are investing in will help you figure out how to best help them surround themselves with reminders of God and His Word.

We talk a lot about wonder on this website. The name of the website is even Discerning Wonder. It’s hard to talk about wonder without thinking about children. Children, especially young children, seem to naturally live in world filled with wonder. Maybe that’s partially why Jesus said “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

Children clearly have a special place in the kingdom, and in many ways we can learn a lot from them. Children’s ministry plays an important role in churches and ministry in general. I know that not everyone agrees with that, and there are a lot of different perspectives on how children and children’s ministry should be done in churches. This month’s book review comes from an older book, but one that I believe has valuable information for the church, ministry leaders, and parents still today.

The book, Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions, was originally written by George Barna in 2003. It was based on research from the Barna Group. Through various studies and research, Barna shares that generally by the age of 13 our spiritual identity is already in place. While children are growing and developing by leaps and bounds through about age 9. After 13, most of their foundations and worldview are in place, and it becomes very difficult to change it later in life. He states that “If you want to shape a person’s life—whether you are most concerned about his or her moral, spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional or economic development—it is during these crucial eight years that lifelong habits, values, beliefs and attitudes are formed.”

Barna doesn’t just rely on research, but also dives into Scripture to examine biblical examples of how much children matter to God. Reminding readers through Scripture that children are a gift from God, that they need to be taught how to think and act in God’s ways, that they are valuable to God and He desires a relationship with them, and more, he lays a foundation for the importance of teaching children. He sums up these reminders saying, “Jesus’ teaching in the opening verses of Matthew 18 suggests that if we, as parents and counselors to the young, lose our interest in and sensitivity to children, we have shirked one of the most important duties given by God to humankind.”

He laments the lack of priority that so many parents, church leaders, and church members place on training children. Barna says that, “I have been discouraged to discover that most American adults—including most parents—see spiritual development of children as a value-added proposition rather than the single most-important aspect of children’s development.” He does not leave things in this discouraging place though. He gives examples of ways to begin teaching children a biblical worldview and train them to be spiritual champions. He encourages readers reminding them that “If you want to have a lasting influence upon the world, you must invest in people’s lives; and if you want to maximize that investment, then you must invest in those people while they are young.”

Teaching children about Jesus, introducing them to Him and how He wants them to live is important not just for parents, not just for children’s ministry leaders, but for the church as a whole. God’s direction to teach his commands to the next generations in Deuteronomy weren’t given just to the parents, though they play a primary role in the task, but they were given to the whole community of Israel. Likewise, as believers we all bear responsibility for teaching the next generations. This can come in many forms, but we all need to appreciate and embrace the importance of training our children to be spiritual champions, and this book is a helpful tool to do just that.

This week we are continuing our series about the importance of investing in others, especially younger generations. Last week we talked about beginning that investment by making sure our faith and relationship with God is something worth passing on to others. We took a close look at Deuteronomy 6:4-6 which says:

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.”

Today, we are going to be taking a look at the next verse in this passage. In verse 7, it says:

“You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up.”

In many ways, last week was the “what “of investing in the coming generations. The “what” is faith and a relationship with God. Now we are starting to get into the how, or maybe more specifically the when, of this investing. How do we invest in others, especially in the next generations? How do I make time for that in my busy schedule? When do I teach? Do I need to be in a classroom or teaching a Bible lesson? Do I force people to sit and listen?

This verse helps us to answer all of those questions and more. The direction we see in Deuteronomy 6:7 is that we talk about and teach these things all the time as we go about our day together in relationship. The verse says that they were to talk about these things with their sons when they were sitting in the house, when they were out walking somewhere, when they were going to bed at night, and when they woke up in the morning. That pretty much covers all day wherever they were. 

As you read that verse, you might be saying that’s great but I don’t have kids or maybe that your kids are grown and out of the house. That’s alright because the principles that we see in this verse still apply to each and every one of our lives no matter what stage of life we are in or what circumstances we face. At the time Moses was speaking to the men of Israel, their primary relationships were with their families, specifically their sons. Our lives and culture today look different at times, but the command to share our faith with others and the principles for how to do it are still valid. 

While it is imperative that parents teach their children about God, we can and should do the same with anyone we are walking alongside in life. As this verse demonstrates it’s not necessarily something that we need to go out of our way to make time for and it doesn’t have to be some formal Bible lesson, not that there is anything wrong with that at times. Instead, this verse is challenging us to make the most of every moment. There are teachable moments happening all around us everyday, everywhere we are, and in everyday conversations. We need to begin to ask God for wisdom and sensitivity to recognize these moments. Whether it’s a child or senior adult or anyone in between, there are moments that come up in conversations and sharing life together where we can teach, remind, encourage, or talk about who God is, His commands, or how we love Him or trust Him. God will provide moments each and everyday. It’s our job to recognize them and be faithful to follow through with them. 

So, who will you be with today when you’re sitting in your house, school, office, or a waiting room? Who will be with you when you’re out for a walk, driving around, or on a bus? Who will you be on the phone with, FaceTiming or texting with? As you go about your day, wherever you go or whatever you do recognize who God has placed in your life. Then keep your ears and eyes open for the opportunities He is giving you to use the normal everyday things of life to talk about Him and His principles as you share His love with those around you.

We are currently in the middle of a series about the Wonder of Discernment. So far we’ve talked about the importance of taking time to slow down and spend with God to seek discernment and putting it into practice as well.  This week we will be talking about the value of training our discernment.

In Hebrews 5:12-14, the believers were being challenged about the maturity of their faith:

“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

The author of Hebrews was really chastising these Hebrew believers for their lack of spiritual maturity. He indicates that those who are mature in their faith have practiced training their senses with discernment. Discernment is kind of like a muscle. The more we exercise it the stronger it grows. While discernment can be a spiritual gift, meaning that some people have been spiritually gifted with stronger discernment muscles, it is something that all believers are called to exercise. We all need to be able to discern good and evil and be able to use discernment, but we get better at it through practice. We need to train ourselves.

When it comes to exercise, I know there are some people who really love to exercise. For many of us though, it’s not something we necessarily love to do. We may have learned to love the outcome and benefits. We may just know that it’s something that will benefit us. That knowledge might be enough to motivate us to put in the time and effort to exercise and train our muscles and body. The same might be said of training our discernment. It might not always be enjoyable at first, but we are called to do it. The more we understand the importance of discernment the more likely we are to begin to exercise it. Eventually, with consistent exercise we begin to actually experience the value of having strong discernment. This in turn can motivate us to exercise it more.

There is another important parallel in the example of exercising our muscles. When we put work into training and developing our muscles, we grow stronger and we need to be wise in how we put that strength to work. We can use our strength to help others or we can use our new found strength to hurt other people. Unfortunately the same can be true as we train and develop our discernment muscles. We can use our discernment to help others, or we can turn our discernment into something hurtful and condemning. It goes back to the idea that our discernment must be rooted and practiced in love.

So how do we train our discernment? To find the answer to that we can look back at the verses from Hebrews 5 and consider the milk versus solid food analogy. To train our discernment we need to be growing in the Word. Just like a baby goes from milk to soft foods like cereal and purees to increasingly solid foods, we must go from learning basic spiritual truths to deeper and more substantial study of God and His Word.

I also find it interesting that these verses start off with them being told that they should already be teachers instead of having someone “again” teach them the “elementary principles” of God. If all we are doing is going to church on Sunday morning expecting someone to “feed us” spiritual nourishment to last us for the week, we are not practicing our discernment or growing. Practicing discernment and getting to solid food means going deeper than any preacher can go in twenty to forty minutes on a Sunday. We need a steady diet of increasingly solid food.

Instead of still being continually fed the basics, they should have been teaching others by this point. While you need to have some discernment in place to be teaching, interestingly enough the act of teaching itself helps to train your discernment even more. There is a famous quote from Aristotle that says, “Teaching is the highest form of understanding.” When you teach others something you have learned, or are learning, it helps you to understand it even better. Last Thursday, we started a series on the importance of investing in others, especially the next generation. So often Christians are hesitant to share their faith or teach others, formally or informally. Yet, in these verses we see that at a certain point we should be doing exactly that. Instead of waiting to feel like we’re “ready” or “equipped” or “know enough” to be talking to, or teaching, others, at some point we need to just try it. We will never really grow our muscles of discernment until we begin using them.

This week we are beginning a new Thursday series about the importance of investing in others, especially younger generations. As we dive into this new series, we will be starting by taking a close look at Deuteronomy 6:1-13.

In this passage in Deuteronomy, Moses has gathered the young nation of Israel and is reminding them of what God has done for them and the commands that He has given to them. He is explaining what they need to be doing as they prepare and enter the Promised Land. He begins this part by saying:

“Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.’”
Deuteronomy 6:1-6

We see in these verses that there is a clear plan that the commands of God and living a life devoted to God are to be passed down from generation to generation. In order to do that though, God and His commands need to be fully embraced by “you”. Although the generations are mentioned, Moses is speaking to and giving these directions and reminders to the generation standing right in front of Him. The same is true of us today. We can’t pass the responsibility off to someone older or someone younger or someone with little kids or older kids or grandkids or whatever other ideas we have of who this applies to. If you are reading these words, then this applies to you. If you still have the eyesight and comprehension to read these words, it applies to you. If you’ve just learned to read and comprehend, it applies to you too. There are always people younger than us or people who have not learned and grown in God as much as we have. Those people need to hear and be taught. They need people to invest in them and help them grow in fearing the Lord our God. They need you.

So, now that we’ve established that you are needed to invest in the lives of others including the next generations where do you start? You start where this passage starts, specifically in verses 4-6 we see:

“‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.’”

These verses are so important that they formed the foundation a prayer, the Shema, recited twice a day by Jews beginning more than a hundred years before the birth of Jesus. They were considered to represent the core of their faith: an understanding of who God is, a call to love Him with everything in us, and a call to keep His commands. This is where we start. We can’t pass on a faith that we don’t really have. To invest in others and share God’s love we need to be embracing that love and faith ourselves.

We start by placing our own trust in God. If you’ve never done that, please find someone to talk to about how you do that. You can even reach out through our website and I’d be happy to discuss that with you. Choosing to follow God and make him Lord of our lives is where we start, but then we face the day-by-day, moment-by-moment choices to love Him will all our heart, soul, and might. In other words, choosing to have a loving relationship with the Mighty God. This means spending time with Him, listening to Him, talking to Him, getting to know Him, seeking His advice and direction, and serving Him. This might sound like a lot, but take a moment to think of the best relationship in your life, maybe with a spouse, a friend or someone else. You probably do, or have done, all of these things and more in that relationship. Loving God means investing in that relationship just like any other good relationship requires.

A relationship with God is different from other relationships though. It is a relationship with the Creator of the Universe. As I’ve frequently explained to kids before, God created everything so that means He knows how it works best. Because He knows how it works best, He set up rules so that we know how to get the most enjoyment from it. That is why in Deuteronomy 6:6 He says, “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.” Part of our relationship with God is understanding His guidelines and commands. They aren’t to limit us or punish us, but because He loves us so much and wants the best for us. When we can truly accept that, it makes it easier to desire to keep His commands on our heart. Once they are there, we can share them with others in love as well.

I hope you will continue to join me throughout this series on investing the next generations. As you begin to consider the importance of this, I hope that the verses we have read today encourage you to start wherever you are and make sure that you have a relationship with God worth sharing with others.