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Author
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Topic: 1st Command pt.2
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botham
Advanced Member
Member # 7935
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posted
Thank you Brother Pau--Jesus said "I Am the resurrection and the life", "before Abraham was, IAM", "I AM the way the truth and the life", and so on. Yes, He never backed off from declaring who He was, and those seeking to diminish His true identity are doing the work of principalities and powers to appease the many who find it inconvenient to repent. There is a terrible watering down of the gospel and some denominations even teach that the resurrection is a myth. A good and beautiful methaphor, but that is it. So I am so happy to read your exhaustive points to show that Jesus Christ is truly God for us, that in order to fathom the depth of God's love we must understand the price paid for us at the Cross, and that we must be continually growing in our faith in a spiritually vigilant manner. God Bless, Botham
Posts: 103 | From: canada | Registered: Nov 2009
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Brother Paul
Advanced Member
Member # 7959
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posted
“You shall put no other gods before me”
This final statement is perhaps the most important of all. After all, this is actually the Commandment, but more than that, it calls us to an important recognition. The Lord (YHVH) is not just another idol or a generic mythological deity, He is the God! He is a living personal being Who throughout history has condescended to humble Himself, for He did not need to, and formed meaningful personal relationships with His creatures, His servants, and His children. From the History of His interaction in human affairs we learned that He sees…He hears, communicates, has feelings, gives guidance, deliverance, provides, and so on!
Who or what else are we going to pay allegiance to? Who or what else do we idolize or covet? And do these things, or persons, or spirits, deliver what we need for success, protection, love, fellowship, and wellbeing, etc.! Do they free us, or do they enslave us? Can they deliver us from our trouble? Do they care? Can statues or pictures or amulets or stars communicate their will for our lives? Do they have spirit that they may empathize with our struggles? Will they lead us to victory, or defeat, security, or doubt and despair? Pay attention now to the Command of the Lord:
"I Am the Lord thy God...you shall put no other gods before me".
The Lord has told us that He alone is the true and only God, There really are no other gods, save when we empower something or someone to have hold over us or to govern us. Did you know that in the Old Testament Hebrew, the most common word for an "idol" literally means a "dung pellet"? It's true! The value or functional reality of these false idols is that they are about as effective or useful as dung pellets. About the only good thing you can do with most of them is use them for fertilizer or to burn them for fuel. Then at least you will get something of value out of them. Even this they do not do for you because they will to.
Can gold or wood will to bless you? Perhaps your money says, “I will now cause you a moment of happiness?” Or perhaps "nature" can actually choose and select in its relation to the living aspects of itself? Or perhaps to mask our subconscious feelings of inferiority, weakness, or impotency, we declare our self the lord, in the vanity of our puffed up imaginations or rebellious insistence on getting our own way!
The problem with all this is, that many people in the world today have never known and do not now know the true God, and whenever a life lacks a relationship with the true God, it automatically seeks a substitute to occupy our desires, or to control our behaviors, or make us feel there is some control over our circumstances.
Romans 1 indicates that we innately know there is a God, and at some point we each exchange the glory of God for a lie, because in our fallen nature we worship the creature more than Creator (Genesis 3:5). For many today, some of these gods may be the Sun, the moon, and the stars, or even the most popular entertainers, or a political leader or party. Maybe our god is the latest media produced sex-symbol, or our career, lust for power, and most often the case, even our own self! But can any of these save us? If we walk off the edge of a skyscraper will any rush in and secure a net below us? Can they deliver us from that which has us bound? John Dewey’s religious “humanism” believes that mankind can save himself, and that mankind can save the world. Well beloved, they have been at it for nearly a century, and I don’t know about you, but it seems things are degenerating. Do these boards with their committees and consensus rescue us in times of trouble?
Did you know that in the time of the ancient Israelites, there were a number of false spiritual gods as well? Molech worship was very cruel, glorifying death, even to normalizing the sacrificing of one's own babies. Ba'al worship was enslaving, seeking power and control, where there was none. Ashteroth was alleged to be a goddess of fertility, but the unrestrained lust and uncleaness of her worship, led the masses into shame, vile disease, and disregard for others.
Doesn't Jesus warn us of worshipping the pursuit of wealth (mammon)? Do we not worship these gods today as well? The lesson is that false gods will always let us down. In the end, they are all about deception, disappointment, and they often lead us even further into the bondage of sin. Today’s depravity, moral sickness, and rampart pro-death mentality seems to be presented as if it is all very reasonable to the unregenerate human mind. The unregenerate have no problem following the crowd into perdition. The prophets of this cause always appear to represent or promise some pleasure, freedom, power, and/or control, but in the end it always leads to some type of bondage (slavery), guilt, depression, anxiety, and even physical illness, etc! The alleged unrestrained “freedom” they offer, which is more correctly defined as license, always leads the many into self-centeredness, selfishness, and self-destruction, not to speak of the deprivation and pain to others who pay for the party, and suffer the consequences from their lack of self-governance.
The freedom that God offers is different! It is an empowered freedom with heart implanted responsible restrictions to allow self and others to live healthy, happy, holy, lives cleansed from the penalty and purpose of the sins in our lives. It is beneficial to all who we affect! It seeks the liberty from bondage to things that ultimately hurt and destroy and empowers us to have fellowship in the presence of the Holy God.
Beloved, it is this God who made us, and He has a plan for each of us. He is alive, and has a name, and He has become our yeshuah (salvation), and so as Immanu-El, the Messiah, He has chosen the name of Y’shua because He saves us from the consequence of our sins (His wrath, sickness, and the second death). To be truly fulfilled we need to recognize this and turn to Him in gratitude, and strive to obey His commandments out of love for Him, so that He can fully bless us as He intended to do since the beginning. He loves us, and He alone is the only one who never lets us down.
Once we come to Him He promises He will never leave us or forsake us. He doesn't steal our fun and joy at all. He warns us of the things that will truly destroy our health, home, relationships, and longevity. God made provision to set us free from the subtle slavery to what binds us, and to these other so-called gods. He became incarnate in Bethlehem, lived a life without sinning, and then as Messiah, He died for us. He Himself bore our iniquities, and rose from the dead proving the power of life was in Him. It is written that all who place their trust in Him will have eternal life. Surely there is no greater promise than that from the heart of the faithful God, the Creator of the entire Universe, and best of all, the promise is unto you, and to your children, your neighbors ...even as many as the LORD our God shall call! God doesn't want you to worship these other gods because He knows the end thereof is death...eternal death, and eternal torment, and His heart grieves for those who choose this path! In Ezekiel 18 the Lord reveals that He is grieved over each and every sinner who by rejecting the offer of His free gift must spend eternity in Hell. God wills that no one should perish but that all should come to repentance and be saved.
The Hebrew for "before me" implies as it would in a marital relationship, that nothing else be allowed to take first place, or replace, the one to whom we are devoted in covenant. In Him this relationship is a covenant. A covenant made between each of you and Him, not some arrangement or contractual agreement under the rules or laws of some State.
We should actively resist and stop any attempt by anything or anyone from moving in and destroying that special covenant bond. Each member placing the Lord first ceases trying to lord it over one another causing true equality (not sameness) to exist each within their appropriate role and function. When we actively do this, it so enhances the relationship, and touches the depths of both hearts in such a way that a union is so formed so tightly that the Hebrew Scriptures call it “echad”, which means they have become one! This is the relationship that the God who loves us wants to have with us, even if we are not always pleasing to Him. Next He wants us to strive to have this oneness between each other, respecting one another, and submitting to one another, in the Lord. Once we turn away from His guiding and caring love, and focus on self, we welcome our own demise. But, when we make sure He is first, then all other things in life heal and prosper. To paraphrase what Elijah once said, “if YHVH is God, then why be double minded any longer, serve Him, if Ba'al be god, then follow him”? Oh well, God has set before us blessing and curse, life and death, we each must choose! Shalom!
Brother Paul
Posts: 235 | From: Cambridge, MA | Registered: Dec 2009
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