Saturday, November 2: Deuteronomy 11- How is faith passed along?.

How is faith passed along?

On the one hand, faith is always lived in the present tense. On the other, key events of the faith happened in the past.

For Israel, poised to cross the Jordan, the chapter begins recognizing that the children were not present when God did his great saving acts of the exodus. Moses acknowledged this in verses 2-6: Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm…  Then he concludes like this. But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the LORD has done (7).

In reality only Moses, Caleb and Joshua actually saw those events. Everyone else in that generation died in the wilderness. And yet, the forefathers had passed on the truth and experience of those events such that their children lived as if they lived through them personally.

And now standing on the verge of the Jordan, Moses was reminding them to pass along the truth to their children as their parents had passed it along to them.

This must be done with and for every generation.

In verse 19 Moses gives part of the how to transfer faith from one generation to the next. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. It is easy to focus on the word ‘teach’ and miss the rest. Teaching here is not merely the impartation of knowledge and facts.  It is the living of life in light of those facts, in such a way that faith is seen in you morning, noon and night. When you sit, and walk, and lie down and get up…

The transfer of living faith occurs throughout the day in any and every occasion…

Am I living in such a way that any moment and every moment could be a teachable moment about the God I serve….His love, His acts, His deeds?

This requires more thought…

Lord, may I live as if I witnessed Christ’s life, death and Resurrection first hand. May what Jesus did, centuries ago, so fill me that I live as if I were there… as if I saw Jesus heal, heard Jesus teach and I felt His embrace following the Resurrection. I pray this through the name of my Risen Savior, Jesus. Amen.