Scripture

Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.
(Matthew 22:37-38)

Devotional

Jesus was quoting what is known in Hebrew as the Shema (Hear). There is a moving story about the noted Jewish psychiatrist Victor Frankl. When the Nazis in World War II arrested him, he was stripped of all his possessions, including his beloved manuscripts, which were sown in his clothing. Naked, he thought that life had no value, no purpose and that his life was over. He was given the worn filthy rags of a prisoner who had been sent to the gas chambers. In the pocket of that tattered uniform was a crumpled piece of paper and on it was the Shema. After his release from the concentration camps he would write in Man’s Search for Meaning; “There is nothing in the world that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions, as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life . . . He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear almost any ‘how’.”

Thought For The Night

“A weak faith is weakened by predicaments and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.” Viktor Frankl, Jewish Austrian psychiatrist who was interned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. He lost his wife and family. Yet, he emerged in triumph.

Evening Text

Matthew 22:37, 38: Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.”

Looking for Answers

If this is the great commandment, does it make the other commandments of any less significance? Consider James 2:10.
When God says, “Hear,” to what are we to listen?
If we are not obedient to what we hear, have we really heard it?

Evening Study Guide

Defining: Shema (Hebrew, literally hear, the first word of Deuteronomy 6:4), Found in three Old Testament passages: Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37-41.

Referencing: “What does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord, Deuteronomy 10:12-13.

Applying: When you hear the Word of the Lord (whether in reading or preaching), listen with an ear that leans toward obedience.