The next generation
We will tell to the coming generation
The glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might. Psalm 78:4
Read Deuteronomy 4:5—13
I read this, and I picture myself there at the place where God’s people received the Lord’s instruction. I see this as a gift for all Israel that was to come. If I were there it would not be just for me or for my generation. I hear in this that I am to live for all those who follow me. Then I realise that someone else did this very thing for me. Many others did. Generations of them. But I know the Lord because someone told me, to my face. Someone had faith and treasured it sufficiently not to keep it to themselves. They wanted to include me in enjoying the beauty of it. All the new discoveries I have made as a Christian have not been my bright initiative (unless they are heresies). They have been prepared for me, gifted to me by the Holy Spirit, an inheritance to be explored in the great company of the church.
Father, I thank you for your Spirit, your gift of yourself to us, your revelation of yourself to me. For the Bible when you speak from it. For those who have held faithfully to the things of God in previous times, saints whose witness inspires me; and for those who spoke the Good News to me under the leading of the same Spirit, and I was awakened to you. May I, too, have the great privilege of offering Christ, even some account of him, to those I see coming on in life around me. Somehow. Some way that pleases you and connects with them. I pray now for the coming generation to know that you are wonderful to them and that you are their God.