Our scripture is Deuteronomy 17:19. We’ll get to that in just a minute. The Old Testament is the majority of the Bible. It’s not there to just show us how bad it was and how much better we have it now. It’s there for our example, we’re told. We have the example of the Israelites turning to God in their distress, being saved, and then forgetting Him and turning away. We have the example of them rejecting God to go after other gods, other ways of saving themselves. It led to God being forced to turn them over to their gods and being defeated by armies and taken from their Promised Land. Only some will get restored to the land in seventy-years’ time. What other examples do we have?

What about this one? “And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them,” (Deuteronomy 17:19, ESV). He’s supposed to read God’s law every day, to keep it before his eyes so that he’ll keep it in his heart and do them. We have to know God’s Word to do God’s Word.

We need to know God’s Word so that we make godly decisions that honor God and are best for us. We need to “owe man nothing,” so we stay out of debt. We need to know that we freely received, so we should freely give—whether it be money or forgiveness. We need to know that God is the God of our salvation, so we can trust Him to bring us out of all those looming troubles. We need to know to do all things without arguing and complaining and to give thanks for all things, so our speech and thoughts honor God. We need to know to not worry and to be still and to turn things over to God with thanksgiving and watch Him work, instead of trying to control the situation ourselves.

But, to know those things, we have to know His Word. We have to keep it before us day and night, through reading, listening, singing, memorizing, meditating. Keep His Word before you, so you’ll learn to fear the Lord and DO His Word.