Oh the Connections We Find

It didn't take long for You to respond to my morning post Lord (You are Pure). I'm sitting in a church pew at Goshen's First United Methodist, and all of a sudden You are there, turning my brain over. And I thought that You'd maybe work through a choir song, sermon, Scripture reading, or something "spiritual" from a Sunday service. Nope, my thoughts were wandering through my own rock music collection when it hit me.

So I'm turning over and over the idea of the pure, purity and so forth when a song simply pops into my head. mewithoutYou's "Leaf." The chorus of the song contains this line, "Purity of heart is to want one thing." It's actually from Soren Kierkegaard's book, "Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing," but still, what a great concept. To be pure, clean, is to only have one thing before You.

So purity is to want one thing. The word one immediately set off lights in my brain. Where else is that word one very prominent, the Shema (sp?) of course. Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, LORD is ONE. Why this connection ringing so louding in my ears? Where does the Shema relate with Psalm 19?

I went back to the beginning of Deuteronomy 6, where the Shema is found. You know what words I found there? Commandments, statutes, ordinances...all the words that struck me from the Psalm 19 passage. Here in Deuteronomy 6 all these words are used to drive us to a point (wait, this is freaking amazing)...fear-of-the-LORD. Yea. Unbelievable the inter-connections of Scripture. From Deuteronomy 6:1-2:

"These are the commandments, statutes, and ordinances that the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, SO THAT you, your children and their children after them may FEAR-THE-LORD by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you..."

Then Scripture follows this up with: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WILL ALL YOUR HEART AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH."

Purity of heart is to want one thing. Fear-of-the-LORD is pure. The one thing we are to want: to love God with our all. So my paraphrase, what I learned this morning.

Fear-of-the-LORD is to want one thing: to love God with our all, enduring forever.

I say it again Lord God Almighty, You amaze beyond my minds conception with Your word and presence. It goes on and on and on and...

I love this!