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\u201cThese 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\u201d (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).

There is an old story of a talented and gifted bloodhound in England that started a hunt by chasing a full-grown male deer. During the chase a fox crossed his path, so he began to chase the fox. A rabbit crossed his hunting path, so he began to chase the rabbit. After a while, a tiny field mouse crossed his path, and he chased the mouse to the corner of a farmer's barn.

There is a moral to this story: we are like the bloodhound. We start the day by loving God but by day\u2019s end we find ourselves in the corner of the barn loving something much smaller, much less impressive, something that has not loved us.

Ah, but there is nothing about love in our text for today, you say. This is true. Often, we separate our text from the words of the Shema which Pastor Anthony reflected on yesterday. We do so to our demise. All the commandments are summed up in the command to love God. And we can only love him because he has first loved us (1 John 4:19).

Recall, how God begins the ten covenant words, \u201cI am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery\u201d (5:6). Paul borrows this language when he explores what God has done for us in Christ, \u201cSo you are no longer a slave, but God\u2019s child\u201d (Galatians 4:7). God does not ask for obedience to be rooted in duty or being afraid of God; rather, it derives from gratitude. We have been set free to serve him.

There is no break in the Hebrew text between today\u2019s words and yesterdays. Love is not absent from our text. For the Israelites, the heart was the seat of thought, memory, and love. In the heart, they were to ponder their history, remember all God had done for them, and respond to him in obedient love.

God instructed the Israelites to always keep his commands before their eyes: as symbols on their hands and foreheads, written on doorframes and gates. Later, Israel will make the mistake of believing that if they keep this literally, all would be well. But that was not the point. The point was that were to put the law into practice all the time. And the adults were to discuss with the children how they were applying the law of God; the children were to see and hear how the adults were loving God.

We find the word, \u201cimpress\u201d in our text. What might that mean? How do we do this? I suggest that we cannot impress with words alone. Words are certainly helpful and needed. Somehow children recognize when our words and actions do not function together. And it is not just that adults, especially parents, need to obey God. What is most important for impressing children, is that they witness adults loving God and keeping his commands. Children need to see that obedience follows love.

When Paul writes that parents ought not to exasperate their children, this is one of the things he is addressing. How can we expect our children to love God if they do not see us loving him? Why should our children obey God if our obedience is only out of duty? When parents, and other adults, have God\u2019s commands on their hearts, obedience becomes a matter of love. This leaves an impression.

Love in the daily matters of life, in the little things. Mother Teresa once said, "There are no big deals anymore, just small things to be done with great love." I think she was paraphrasing Paul, who wrote, \u201cThe only thing that matters is faith working itself out in love\u201d (Galatians 5:6).

There are many things to chase after in this world. But there is only one that saves. There is only one that is worthy of our love. And that is the cross, where God demonstrated his love for us. Only the cross will continue to draw us into the love of God. That is the only love worth passing on.