When we think of God’s love, we think of an all-encompassing
type of love. Agape (G26) means love,
charity, benevolence, etc. We may have
our own concept of what ‘love’ means, but just what does that ‘love’ involve?
Father gave Israel what we call the “Ten Commandments”. They are a description of how we should love
God and others. How many Christians
‘really’ understand them? How many
Christians truly abide by them?
This not only will refresh our memories of what the
commandments are, but why we should abide in them. This is not just a’ to do’ or ‘not to do’
list but to gain an understanding of how we may benefit by keeping them.
For openers, we must believe that God is. He created the heavens
and he earth and everything that is in them, even giving life to all things
(Gen. 1:11-21, Isa. 42:5, Isa. 44:24, John 1:1-4). When we don’t believe God exists, here is no
sense reading any farther. Unless, of
course, it helps us to believe that God
IS. Moses asked God, if they ask
whom shall I tell Israel who sent me?
Father responded “I AM that I AM, tell them I AM has sent you (Exodus 3:14).
Deuteronomy 6:1- 25
Father gave us commandments (love), statutes and judgements
to live by that we should abide in them wherever we live. By so doing, we are telling God that we fully
respect Him and His mighty and awesome power.
As we abide in His love, it will be well with us and our
days will be prolonged. He tells us to
put His commandments into our heart, soul and might and also diligently teach
our children to do the same. In whatever
we say and do, His love should be a part of it and to even write His
commandments all around our house so we might always remember Him. From our perspective, we should also
remember all the things He has done and still does for us. Focusing on the commandments (love) help us
remember Father’s goodness towards us.
Father reminds us not to put anything above Him. He is God, creator of all things. He will cast out our enemies which come
against us (Exod. 14:14, Rom 12:19). As
we abide in God’s commandments (love), He will preserve us and count it to us
for righteousness (Rom. 4:3).
Deuteronomy 5:7-21
So, let’s review the Commandments of God.
1 Have no other God’s before me
That is to not to worship anything other
than God. That includes things made of
wood, stone, metal, etc. that means not statues, not people, not animals nor
anything fashioned with human hands and this includes anything unseen, concepts
or ideas.
2 Do not
make any graven images or likeness of anything in heaven above, the earth
beneath or the waters beneath the earth.
You shall not bow down to nor serve them for I am a jealous God and
visit the iniquity of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation of those
who hate me.
When we give our attention to
anything other than God, we show our contempt or perhaps our disbelief in His
existence. How would we feel if, after
we have poured all our energies into another person and then they tell us to
‘take a hike’? When we worship anything
else, that’s what we’re telling our heavenly Father to do.
3 You shall
not take the name of the Lord your God in vain for those who take His name in
vain, the Lord will not hold guiltless.
Vain (H7723 shav [7722 showah] which
mean make desolate by destruction, destroy, storm or wasteness). We are telling God that His name means nothing
to us.
4 Keep the Sabbath day and sanctify it.
The Sabbath is a day to rest from
our labor as God rested from His labors on the seventh day (Gen. 2:3, Heb. 4:8-11). We need time to sit down and catch our breath
(so to speak) but then we sanctify (H6942 quaddash appoint, dedicate, proclaim, sanctify) that
time (Exod. 3:13-17). That means to set
time aside in which we relax our bodies and give time to the lord and consider
all the blessings and goodness He has brought into our lives. Father tells that this is a time when
everybody and everything should rest.
Israel was even told to prepare double portion of food the day before
the Sabbath so they wouldn’t even have to cook on the Sabbath (Exod. 16:22-25).
5 Honor our
father and mother so that our days might be prolonged and that it might go well
with us.
When children, dad and mom were
charged with teaching us the law (Deut. 6:7).
Showing our parents respect also shows our respect for God, for they
should reflect God’s love for us (Eph.6:1-4).
Being obedient to dad and mom shows our respect to God, our heavenly
Father. Our parents have authority over
us and God has authority them (or should).
6 You shall
not Kill.
Kill - H7523 ratsach
dash to pieces, put to death, murder or kill.
Do we really need to discuss ‘taking a life’? The life of one who kills, his life is
required (Gen. 9:6).
7 Neither shall you commit adultery.
9H5003 naaph commit adultery, break wedlock. Adultery pretty much means as we see it today
– not being faithful to our spouse, eyeballing that ‘babe ’or ‘hunk’ and then
acting on that lust which is actually not honoring the love for our
spouse. Open marriages ae a bunch of BS!
8 Neither shall you steal.
H1589 ganab carry away, secretly bring or steal. Steal is pretty straight forward as well –
taking something which does not belong to us.
”I just ‘borrowed’ it for a little while.” Taking without permission is stealing
9 Neither shall you bear false witness.
H6030 anah is to cry out, answer. H7723
shav is to speak evil of, is false,
destructive, a lie. H5707 ed is testimony, witness. I use three words hear to get the point
across, perhaps a little more clearly.
When our testimony about someone or something else is not true, in the
courtroom that is called perjury and can result in jail time.
10 Neither shall
you desire your neighbor’s wife, house, fields, animals nor anything that
belongs to your neighbor.
H2530 chamad love, desire, covet (want really bad). Chamad is just an excuse to take something
that is not ours and clearly belongs to someone else. It is similar to stealing, but is usually
what happens before one actually steals something.
Now is a good time to bring up one last item – desiring to
do any of the above. The do’s ae okay,
but the don’ts can get us into a whole lot of trouble.
Our enemy is always looking for weak spots so he can drag us
down, weaken our testimony or perhaps even to even completely destroy us. Violating the commandments give us a pretty
good idea of how our enemy works
The devil isn’t stupid and he has a mighty army, but God’s is
bigger, two to one. Satan dragged 1/3 of
the angels down with him (Rev. 12:4, 7-9), when he was cast out of heaven. Let’s do a little math here John says that
around God’s throne were ten thousand times ten thousand plus thousands
and thousands angels. That is, at least,
100,000,000 (billion) plus thousands and thousands more! The most recent count says the earth’s
population is a little over 8.3 billion. That means there are probably over 40
billion demonic entities (1/3 of 100 billion) and I haven’t counted the
thousands and thousands). out there and we still have them outnumbered two to
one. We might say that the devil has at
least four devils watching over each one of us without underestimating the
count.
Back to the devil and us.
So the devil has a many demons as he wants to keep tabs on us watching
for our weaknesses and our strengths (1 Peter 5:8). He knows with what to entice us how we might
fall into his trap. Should we take the
bait and decide to do whatever he’s dangling in front of us, we have
sinned (James 1:14-15).
When we do sin, we have an advocate, Jesus Christ the Righteous
(1 John 2:1-2), so we confess our sin and repent of our sin, then like the
prodigal son and changing our ways, we are reinstated into Gods’ family (1 John
1:9, Luke 15:11-32). Should we not
recognize, admit, confess and repent our sin, that sin could potentially
compound the situation which could lead to death – separation from Father (James
1:15).
I speak for myself, what I do know, I haven’t learned
overnight the things I need to know. The
more I prayerfully read the bible, the more I continue to learn. It is a growing process. Some learn more quickly while others need
more time. How diligent we are with
prayerfully reading the bible will determine how quickly we grow. The devil will try to discourage us but find your
pace and go with it and should Father increase that pace later – go with the
flow. Our flow? A verse, a chapter, a
book, whateve,r start with something!
We have to decide to get the ball rolling (reading the scripture) and
then do it!
Father is patient with us. Though I speak with the language
of men and angels, prophesy and understand all mysteries and I have great faith,
if I don’t love, I have nothing. Though
I help the needy and even give my life for Jesus, I am nothing. Love is
longsuffering, kind, is not envious, is not filled with pride, does not behave
unseemly nor seek for its own benefit, is not easily provoked and does not
consider evil and rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, hopes for all things and endures all things (1
Corinth. 13:1-7). And take note, giving
my life for Jesus doesn’t necessarily mean physically dying, but it definitely means
‘living for Jesus’. living in God’s
love.
I said the purpose of this is to discover how to love God
and others. Jesus says that we should
love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and then love
others as ourselves (Mark 12:29-31). Do
we think 1 Corinthians might give us a practical clue as how to live?
How good a job are we doing it?
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