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"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

I mentioned this before, but I\u2019ve been struck lately by the absence of congregational worship from the life of the Old Testament. I mean, daily, weekly, and annual rhythms of sacrifice and prayer were always going on at the National gathering place of tabernacle and later the temple. And the weekly rhythms of Sabbath were ongoing in homes across the land. But there\u2019s no steady intermediate place. No church or synagogue where a community that was larger than one\u2019s household, but smaller than the whole tribe or nation would gather for a weekly service.

Much more emphasis was placed on the two anchor points at the extreme: on the one end\u2014the central worship at tabernacle and temple where the rituals of confession, sacrifice, forgiveness, and praise were rehearsed, and on the other end\u2014the decentralized worship that happened week to week in homes when the Sabbath was observed.

Here in Deuteronomy 6, the people are finally at the doorstep of the promised land. Their wilderness wanderings have come to an end.

For 40 years, they have been shaped by centralized worship. The tabernacle was pitched right in the center of the camp. Anyone could look down the row of tents to see it. Always\u2014daily\u2014the rituals were being rehearsed and repeated there again, and again in the sight of the people. Always\u2014daily\u2014the conversation with God was being kept as He and Moses spoke face to face in the tent of meeting. Always\u2014daily\u2014the people were on pilgrimage with their God and their God with them. The ordinary stuff of everyday life was entirely and visibly intertwined with the sacred realities of God among them.

But, they were about to be scattered.

Here on the plains of Moab, overlooking the promised land, Moses began to remind the people of what they would need most when they became scattered across that land. They would no longer be one big camp together in one place surrounding their central place of worship at the tabernacle\u2014they would be scattered to their own homes, days away from each other. They might not see a priest or the tabernacle for months.

So, how would they stay faithful as God\u2019s people when scattered?

Moses gives some ideas right here: It\u2019s about staying faithful in the everyday ordinary stuff of life. To love God. To keep God and His ways not just on your lips, but in your heart. But also to keep God on your lips: telling of His stories and commands when you\u2019re sitting around, when you\u2019re on the go, when you\u2019re parenting, when you\u2019re going out, when you\u2019re coming in, when you turn in for the night, and when you get up the next morning. Make a note on your hand to remember if you have to.

The life of faith has to be lived where you are every day of your life. Especially when we\u2019re scattered.

Pastor Michael and I pray that these devotions have helped to make your faith walk an everyday part of your life. Keeping rhythms of faithfulness is hard to do when we\u2019re scattered from centralized worship and one day blurs into another. So, it\u2019s good to keep praying for and speaking with one another on ways that we can encourage each other to keep the faith where we are, each day of our lives.

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