Daily Devotionals

Devotional: December 11th

“Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets before your eyes.”

Today’s verse is incomplete without the three verses that follow, and so we quote them here: “And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.”

Here we have a no-nonsense account of the important place that the Word of God should have in the lives of His people. When these conditions are met, believers will experience days of heaven upon earth.

First we should memorize the Word, or as the text says, lay it up in our hearts and souls. The man who learns vast portions of the Scriptures by heart enriches his own life and increases his potential for blessing others.

Next the Word should be bound to our hands and to our foreheads. This does not mean using phylacteries, as some think, but rather that our actions (hands) and desires (eyes) should be under the Lordship of Christ.

God’s Word should be the central topic of conversation in the home. In addition, every home should have the family altar, when the Scriptures are read daily and the household prays together. No one can gauge the sanctifying influence of the Bible on such a home.

This same Word should occupy us when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we get up. In other words, the Scriptures should become so much a part of our lives that they mold our conversation wherever we are and whatever we are doing. We should talk in the language of the Bible.

Should we write verses on our doorposts and gates? A very good idea! Many Christian homes have HYPERLINK "javascript:" on the front door: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” And many more homes have Scripture texts hanging on the walls inside.

When we give the Holy Scriptures their proper place in our lives, we not only save ourselves from wasted hours of small talk, but we occupy ourselves with the subjects that really matter, the subjects that are of eternal consequence, and we maintain a Christian atmosphere in our homes.

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