Exodus 20: 1-17
And God spoke all these words:
God was speaking directly to all the people that Moses had led out of Egypt.
(1) I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
God is the One who has the power to break all of our "chains" that hold us in bondage: addictions, bad habits, physical problems, financial troubles, relational disconnects, emotional dysfunctions, spiritual doubts. Everything that would hamper our openness with God and others.
You shall have no other gods before Me.
Anything we put between us and God is a god, an idol.
(2) You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything
God will not allow any statues of anything . . .
in Heaven above
Like saints who have died before us, or angels, or our idea of what God or Jesus look like.
or on the Earth beneath or in the waters below.
Or in the shape of anything else anywhere.
You shall not bow down to them
Or kneel before them.
or worship them;
Or give worth-ship to them by praying to them or lighting candles to them.
for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God,
Jealous, as not willing to give His worth-ship to any other, only God has that worth, or deserves it.
punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me,
Parents teach their children, and the children admire and model their parents, from generation to generation.
but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
As long as parents know and teach the Truth to their children, it can be passed from one generation to the next, without limit.
(3) You shall not misuse the Name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His Name.
The Name of our Lord God, Jesus, has limitless power; to use this Name for no purpose, as an expletive, is to dishonor His greatness and authority.
(4) Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath Day and made it holy.
God is always our example and our model that we are to emulate. God "rested" from Creation when He had completed it; now the First Law of Thermodynamics (what Science is based on) is the "conservation of matter," that nothing that exists can be destroyed or cease to exist, nor can any more matter than what is can be added to it: the Lord God is the Creator, and what He has done cannot be undone.
Before Jesus, mankind were like little children spiritually, needing all the details to be spelled out. While our Lord Jesus walked this Earth, He fulfilled all of the Law, the body of rules and regulations that spell out all the details. Now that Jesus has accomplished our Redemption and given His own Spirit of Truth to live in us, it's like we're adolescents now, with more responsibility before God. Now we can see that the "letter of the Law" is only the outward evidence of what God wants of us, to live by the "spirit of the Law," the principle the law is based on.
Jesus said that Mankind was not made for the Sabbath, but that the Sabbath was made for Man, for our benefit. So when we acknowledge that we need to take a regular day off from normal work, to rest and regenerate and revive, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, then we will care for our wellbeing as the Lord's body, and magnify Him in our lives.
(5) Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
To obey our parents is the only commandment given to children. If we learn to respect, obey and honor our parents as children, then we will be able to honor and obey all the other authorities that will be over us in life: teachers, mentors, law enforcement officers, church leaders; and we will also obey God, Who we cannot see. We will be able to get along with others in this world, and come to God when He calls us into His own Family.
(6) You shall not murder.
Jesus taught that if we do not love our brother, if we will not consider others as worth our consideration, if we hold a grudge against another; then we have already murdered them in our hearts. We are to love one another, to consider other as "better" than ourselves in considering their needs that we are able to help with.
(7) You shall not commit adultery.
Jesus also said that if a man even looks at a woman lustfully, he has already transgressed this commandment. The act of adultery is only the result of all the mental activity that has already been allowed. Instead we are to cultivate an attitude of respect and purity and modesty toward those of the opposite gender, being faithful in both body and mind to our own spouse, having "eyes" only for him or her, valuing our marriage, or saving ourselves for the one we will marry in the future.
(8) You shall not steal.
Honesty is in view here. Always love and respect for others is to undergird our lifestyles, which would not permit dishonesty in any matter.
(9) You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
We are not loving anyone we spread slander about, or lie about in any way.
(10) You shall not covet
To be envious of, and want to possess for ourselves anything that someone else has, is not respecting the other, or taking joy in their achievements.
your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Everything is spelled out here that someone may own in that time period, and in case someone thinks of something else, the "anything" will cover it.
We can take pride in and be glad for our neighbor if he or she surpasses us in quality or quantity of possessions. God has given each of us everything we need, both in this life and in the next.
These Ten Commandments seem to cover every area of life that we may experience, and God's Principles are all based on His love for us. Because He has loved us with such an unlimited and expansive and passionate love, we are to love Him back, and to love one another with His unconditional caring and consideration for others, no matter what it costs us.
Love really does make the world go 'round! God's love! And when we understand His love for us, it shows us how much we are worth to God, and frees us to love others the same way. When we do, then we will live our lives in sync with how He designed it to run, and everything will fall into place for us.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
