November 4, 2024 

Today's Reading: Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Daily Lectionary: Jeremiah 5:1-19; Matthew 22:23-46

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deuteronomy 6:4-7)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. 

How will you know God? Just look around and see the world struggling to know God, or to find God, or to experience God, or to figure God out. We can see some looking for God by climbing a mountain to meet a spiritual guru or trying to find Him through some sort of spiritual practice such as yoga (which is not truly “spiritual” at all since it’s the practice of body and mind and movement techniques), or to locate God by some sort of worldly government or movement, or even by trying to expand the brain spiritually with the use of drugs. It goes on and on. You can probably think of several other ways our generation tries to locate God. 

How will you know God? Moses says: “Hear, O Israel …” It’s by hearing. It’s through your ears. What goes into ears, of course, are words. You will know God by hearing His words spoken into your ears. Take the words Moses tells us, and cherish them, memorize them (“these words … shall be on your heart”). Write them down. Speak them to one another. Keep them in your conversation. Speak them with your children when you’re going down the road.  

In the way the world sees things, we have a strange God. A God comprehended by high-order thinking, a rigidly disciplined lifestyle, or deeply-felt spiritual yearnings—that God our world would accept. But a God comprehended and held onto by hearing His words and holding on to those words in faith—that God is foolishness to our world.

But God comes by hearing. The word to hear is the Gospel, the Word of Christ. This Word forgives sins. It declares you righteous. It cleanses the conscience. It creates faith. As Paul tells us, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?... So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:14, 17).

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Thy strong Word bespeaks us righteous; Bright with Thine own holiness, Glorious now, we press toward glory, And our lives our hopes confess. Alleluia, alleluia! Praise to Thee who light dost send! Alleluia, alleluia! Alleluia without end! (LSB 578:3)

-Rev. Warren Graff, pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Albuquerque, NM

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

Spend time reading and meditating on God’s Word throughout the Church Year with the Enduring Grace Journal. Includes scripture readings, prayers, prompts, and space for journaling. The Church Year Journal, Enduring Grace, now available from Concordia Publishing House.