Message summary: The Spirit bearing fruit in our lives is a direct result of our applying the truths that we study, so let us resolve that we will keep learning and applying!

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"Moses summoned all Israel and said: Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them" (Deuteronomy 5:1). 

This last Saturday I donated blood*¹ at one of three bloodmobiles parked outside of Hostetters, a local hardware store here in Mount Joy. A bloodmobile is a bus retrofitted to being a blood donor center on wheels. There are six stations (recliners) in each bus where the donor lies down while giving blood. (This photo is Brooksyne giving blood during covid in our church gymnasium. She is holding her arm high in the air for about three minutes as instructed after giving blood to stop the bleeding.)

Now back to my story on Saturday. As I awaited the tech to start my donation I engaged in conversation with another donor who is a first grade teacher.  I told him that, in my view, he is the student's most important teacher since he will teach the children to read.

I thanked him for what he does and said that I sure wish I could thank Mrs Wilson, my first grade teacher. As I recall she was right out of college when she taught our class so if she is still living she would probably be in her late 80's. I think she would be pleased to hear from a seventy-one year old student who hasn't forgotten her contribution to his life.

Mrs. Wilson had a fundamental role in teaching me to read though I doubt if I ever thanked her. The ability to read (literacy) opens the door to essentially limitless learning and study. After we learn to read we can learn about anything we choose whether in a formal or informal educational setting.*² It just takes a desire to do so. I once visited with a teacher who explained it this way."First you 'learn to read' then you 'read to learn'". That's a pretty nifty explanation!

Learning should be ongoing over a lifetime for the growing Christian, especially the study of the Holy Scriptures and the things of God. It's not merely while we are young or perhaps while preparing for ministry or another career, but learning should be a lifelong pursuit.

The first daily text is the introduction to the Ten Commandments: "Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today". This is a retelling of the message God had declared to the people some 40 years earlier on Mount Sinai recorded in Exodus 20.

Now a new generation was poised to enter the Promised Land and Moses gave a repeat.

He told them, "Learn them and be sure to follow them". He didn't just preach this once but he repeatedly spoke this over the years that the Israelites journeyed in the wilderness. Because we tend to focus on the actual Ten Commandments that follow this nugget of wisdom may be overlooked.

Other versions render slightly differently: "learn them, and keep, and do them" (KJV), "learn them and be careful to do them" (ESV). "Learn and follow them carefully" (HCSB).  Here's a full list.

Let's consider the two essential components

1) "Learn them". The Israelites were to learn these commandments. In our case an application is to learn these timeless commandments and the entirety of God's revelation expressed in His Word.

2) "be sure to follow them". This is practice and obedience for the Israelites and for us. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock" (Matthew 7:24).

Let us be lifelong learners of God's truth and be sure to follow them.

Be encouraged today, Hebrews 3:13