Turn Your Children Toward God

God's Exceptional Choice  We are God's Artwork God Picked You! Live in the light of God (Isaiah 2:5)  Deuteronomy 7:1-11 The Voice 7 Moses: As the Eternal, your True God, is bringing you into the land where you're going to live when you cross the Jordan, He'll drive out many nations ahead of you—Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—seven nations that are bigger and stronger than you are. 2 The Eternal your God will put them in your power. You must crush them; destroy them completely! Don't make any treaties with them, and don't show them any mercy. 3 Above all, don't intermarry with them! Don't marry your daughters to any of their sons, and don't marry your sons to any of their daughters. Eternal One: 4 This would cause your enemies to turn your children away from Me to worship other gods. Moses: If you did worship other gods, the Eternal would become furious with you and destroy you in an instant! 5 So this is what you must do to these nations instead: tear down their altars, smash their monoliths, chop down their sacred poles,[a] and throw the idols they've carved into the fire! Moses: 6 Remember: you're a people set apart for the Eternal your God; He is your God and has chosen you to be His own possession—His special people—out of all the peoples on the earth. 7 The Eternal didn't become devoted to you and choose you because you were the most numerous of all the peoples—in fact, you were the least! 8 Instead, He brought you out of Egypt with overwhelming power and liberated you from slavery to Pharaoh the king because He loved you and was keeping the oath He swore to your ancestors. 9 I want you to know that the Eternal your God is the only true God. He's the faithful God who keeps His covenants and shows loyal love for a thousand generations to those who in returnlove Him and keep His commands. 10 But He holds personally accountable those who hate Him, and He destroys them; He does not delay when anyone hates Him, but He holds them personally accountable. 11 Therefore, be very careful to obey the commands and rules and judgments I'm giving you today. For Reflection "One of the most important ways faith is communicated is from parent to child. Most people who do find a lifelong faith come into it by the time they are young adults, and the most significant influence on them is what they've seen modeled at home. Stories and experiences are a compelling influence on the faith of children. The first stage in building this sense of covenant loyalty to God was to eliminate every trace of pagan worship from the land. None of the Canaanites' existing religious fixtures could be used for worship. The altars other nations used to offer their sacrifices were dedicated explicitly to other gods, like Baal and Asherah, through their distinctive designs and decorations. The True God could not be represented in the shape of any created thing since He is the creator of everything!"* *Commentary embedded in The Voice Pray Pray for those who are your enemies. Pray and understand whom they worship. Pray and resist the idols of others. Pray and be a witness to the resurrected Christ. Forward to a friend Sign up for our mailing list!