#DailyDevotion Hear O Israel, The Lord Our God, The Lord Is One
October 6
Deut 5:22—6:9
Deu 6:4-7 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. (5) You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (6) And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. (7) You shall teach them diligently to your children, 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.
The Israelites were at once amazed they and Moses had heard the voice of God and lived and on the other hand didn’t think they could hear the voice of the Lord again and live. So they petitioned Moses to go and listen to God and bring back whatever the Lord wanted to tell them. The Lord thought this was a good idea. So the Israelites only heard from God’s mouth the Ten Commandments. The rest of the statutes, precepts and regulations the Lord instructed to Moses and Moses relayed them back to the people.
Now in chapter six we have the great Shema. Shema is the Hebrew word for listen or hear. That’s the first word of the verse, “Hear, O Israel!” Israel was to listen to the word of God, believe it and do it. But what was Israel to hear? The Lord our God, the Lord is one. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was the Lord and he was the only living God. There were no other gods they were to worship because there were and are no other gods. All other things that claim to be gods are of man’s imagination and under demonic influences. To worship other gods as God is to deflate the almighty power of the Lord and to spit on his mercy.
The Lord is the sum and source of everything. Yet this Lord is our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father is Lord. The Holy Spirit is Lord. Great is the mystery of faith that each person is Lord, the one Lord and yet distinct persons in the Godhead. For the Holy Scriptures declare, Joh 17:11 “Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” Again St. Paul teaches us, 1Co 8:6 “yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” And again St. Paul teaches us, Eph 4:4-6 “There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— (5) one Lord, one faith, one baptism, (6) one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” So the Spirit, the Father and the Son are one Lord yet distinct.
On top of this great mystery is our calling to be one in Christ and in Christ enter the on life of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for Jesus prays, Joh 17:21 “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” So all Christians are one in Spirit with our Lord Jesus Christ and in Christ we are one in God. Now as the Lord instructed Moses in the wilderness, he taught the apostles all that we were do believe, keep and do. These he has given us through their hands in the New Testament. We, like the Israelites before us not to have any other gods. There is nothing and no one else that is to get us through the night but our Fathers, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Put your trust in them and then live according to the Word.
Heavenly Father, you have revealed your oneness to the World in the revelation of your Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Keep us ever faithful to the one true living God through faith in Jesus and the power of your Holy Spirit that we may be one in Christ and one in you for all eternity. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.