How can we nurture the love of God in our hearts? One good way is to remember all He has done for us. This is why so many of the Psalms which praise God spend so much time rehearsing all the ways He has blessed His people throughout the years.

For how could God’s Old Testament people doubt His power when they remembered the mighty plagues He sent upon the Egyptians, or the way He parted the Red Sea for them to cross into safety? How could they doubt His love for them when they remembered how He had brought them out of slavery and brought them into a bountiful land where they could be free? How could they doubt His faithfulness when they saw how He kept His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to make them a great nation and to give their descendants a place to live?

And how much more can we, God’s New Testament people, rejoice when we remember the great work God has accomplished for us in Christ? How can we doubt God’s self-sacrificial, unconditional love when we know Jesus died on the cross for a world full of sinners who despised and rejected Him? How can we doubt God’s power when we remember that Christ walked out of His tomb on the third day? How can we doubt God’s faithfulness when we see how Jesus fulfilled all the words of the prophets, and when we remember His promise to return to complete the redemption of the world? Surely, meditating on all these things is a wonderful way to nurture the love of God in our hearts.

But the Great Commandment tells us that it is not enough to love God with all our hearts – we must also love our neighbors as ourselves. And today’s passage gives us a great way to put such love into practice – by passing on our faith to our children, to the next generation. We must not keep the memory of God’s love and God’s blessings to ourselves. Instead we must tell others what the Scriptures teach, the whole story of God’s plan for redeeming us from our sin. But if our children are to share our faith, they must not only hear about the mighty acts of God in Jesus Christ from us. They must also see us live lives of faithful obedience to God, lives marked by love of God and love of our neighbors.

Deuteronomy 6:20-25 (ESV)

20 “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the LORD our God has commanded you?’
21 then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
22 And the LORD showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes.
23 And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers.
24 And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day.
25 And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.’