Our Daily Bread Fed 4
Faith Investments / By: Cindy Hess Kasper Teach [these words of mine] to your children.
Deuteronomy 11:19
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Deuteronomy 11:18–20 (NIV):
18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 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. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates,
On his twelfth Christmas, the boy eagerly awaited the opening of the gifts under the tree. He was yearning for a new bike, but his hopes were dashed—the last present he received was a dictionary. On the first page, he read: “To Charles from Mother and Daddy, 1958. With love and high hopes for your best work in school.”
In the next decade, Chuck did do well in school. He graduated from college and later, aviation training. He became a pilot working overseas, fulfilling his passion to help people in need and to share Jesus with them. Now some sixty years after receiving this gift, he shared the well-worn dictionary with his grandchildren. It had become for him a symbol of his parents’ loving investment in his future, and Chuck still treasures it. But he’s even more grateful for the daily investment his parents made in building his faith by teaching him about God and the Scriptures.
Deuteronomy 11 talks about the importance of taking every opportunity to share the words of Scripture with children: “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” (v. 19).
For Chuck, the eternal values planted when he was a boy bloomed into a lifetime of service for his Savior. With God’s enablement, who knows how much our investment in someone’s spiritual growth will yield.
Today’s Hymns:
You Raise Me Up
Find us Faithful
Scripture to Respond:
Proverbs 22:6
Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.
2 Timothy 3:14-17
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Reflection:
During your growth, who has nurtured and built up your spiritual life?
How do you guide the hearts of new believers towards learning wisdom from the Bible?
Prayer:
Dear loving Father, help me devote more time to reading about wisdom in the Bible so that I can know you more and share such wisdom with others, especially the new believers.
Wong Wai Tung (Chief executive officer of The Great Wall Education Foundation) & Sam Chow (Administrative officer of The Great Wall Education Foundation) Translated by Jenny Hung
