Since the new year began we have been discussing how we value God’s Word and how God desires for His Word to function in our lives. We have seen that we read the Bible to build a relationship with God, that His Word is His revelation of His character, His heart, His ways and His requirements of His children. We read the Bible to abide in that relationship, to dig deep roots that allow us to remain steady, centered and focused on who God is no matter what goes on around or within us. Jesus drew a straight line, in John 15, from His Word to His love, we learn the reality of God’s love through His Word, when His Word abides in us we learn to believe that we abide in His love. The Bible is above all else the revelation of who God is, it was not written about us it was written for us, not simply so that we could know the way to heaven, or to blessing or a good life, or even so that we could know how to avoid hell; it was written so that we could know how deep and how wide, how broad and how long is the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. The Bible was written so that we could know who God is and who we are to God, He is our Father and we are the children He desires to adopt as His own. We read for relationship, we read to abide and for the past month we have seen that we read to respond. There is only one response that God desires or accepts from us as His children, obedience. As we have talked about obedience has to be more than compliance, more than just doing what we are told, obedience has to be a condition of our hearts; it has to be born out of love and lived in relationship. Obedience is not how we merit favors or earn blessings, obedience is the action of trust, the overflow of knowing that we are loved and the outcome of choosing to love with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength. In Deuteronomy 3 we were given what I have called a path to obedience as God told Moses to prepare Joshua to lead Israel into the Promised Land. God gave Moses very specific instructions, He was to command Joshua, meaning to have conversations with him, to tell him everything that God had said. Moses was to encourage Joshua, meaning that He was to instill strength in him by preparing him for everything that he would face and he was to build courage in Joshua by reminding him of God’s constant presence and promise to never leave nor forsake him. Over the last two weeks we have learned that encouragement is about discipline, it prepares us in the present for something we will face in the future and that courage is about trust, it is not the absence of fear but rather the willingness to face our fears because we are convinced of God’s loving presence. Today I want to finish this series by expanding our understanding of trust. If courage is having enough trust in God to step out in faith in the midst of our fears, then devotion is having enough trust to stand still, to hold on and to be sure even when we don’t know. There are things that belong to God and there are things that belong to us, devotion is choosing to be faithful to what is ours and trusting with what is God’s. This morning I pray that we will learn that obedience is fulfilled when we choose to be devoted to God’s character through God’s Word.