Large swath I cut, I know, specially right to the end of the book.  There’s plenty to think about here, but I’m on a narrow, short track.  Related to the previous post, Accountransparonestability,in many ways, this engine is on a quick trip to failure-land, which has a funny horizon of hope.

Notice how many times Moses says the word “stiff-necked” in Deuteronomy.  Four times.  Notice how he uses that word.  He doesn’t use it as an adjective in past tense.  It’s always present tense, be, are.  He gives instructions on how to stop being stiff-necked, but Moses never says that some used to be stiff-necked.  They were stiff-necked.

What does this all mean?  Further along, in Chapter 31, God takes Moses and Joshua (the official replacement) aside for some intimate direction.  There, in the tabernacle of meeting, God told Moses the first of the two things that struck me most out of this entire book.

“Behold, you will rest with your fathers; and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.” Deuteronomy 31:16

Those stiff-necked people were uncured.  God intimated to Moses that no amount of reading-of-the-law, no amount of required 7-year meetings, sacrifice or regulation would prevent Israel’s turning away from their Lord.  30 long chapters, filled with glory and defeat, misery and elation, pleading, cajoling, reminding, castigating, loving and managing and giving and taking, all amounted to this – one – heartbreaking – statement.  Can you imagine what was going through Moses’ mind right then?

I’m sure he knew all too well what his people could get into when he left.  I’m also pretty sure Moses may have harbored some hope that his exhaustive (exhausting?) words over the past two months (my notes have what may have been January through February in 1405 B.C.) might have been of real impact to the people and that there might be some semblance of promise for them in the end.  To hear that, on the surface, all that preaching was for naught, must have been pretty near devastating, especially to what amounted to a pastor who had shepherded his flock, through thick and thin, for a lifetime.

So heartbreaking was this, and probably unbelievable to most, that God gave Moses specific directions yet one more time to provide proof of the truth to his people in the form of a song.  It’s darker than the popular dark songs of today.  My darkest poem doesn’t hold much of a whisper to this tragedy.  Here is Moses’ introduction:

“Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there as a witness against you; for I know your rebellion and your stiff neck.  If today, while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the Lord, then how much more after my death?  Gather to me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers that I may speak these words in their hearing and call heaven and earth to witness against them.” Deuteronomy 31:26-29

Read the song (Chapter 32).

I looked back after finishing it, read again what God told Moses in 31:16.  Shuffled through the reading of the Law and all that Moses spent those two months (TWO STRAIGHT MONTHS) covering with his people.  It wasn’t just a list of “thou shalt, thou shalt not.”  I think people only pay attention to the main TEN commandments.  They’re great, and they’re the roots of everything else, but Moses did far more than just tell the people what steps to take.  He explained those steps.  He was giving directions on how to glorify God, to submit to him, to hold Him as sole Master and Lord, how to love one another, both strangers and brothers alike.  These people had a distilled, two-month college course in human operations.

They would still completely screw it all up.

And so will I.  I took Deuteronomy very personally.  This book illuminated for me my own capacity to fail, to fall short.  It really did bring to my attention my potential to turn away from God.  There have been weeks, even months where every – single – day was an exercise in provoking God, corrupting myself, being perverse and crooked (the song, Deuteronomy 32:5). I saw it.  The message here really is that I’m stiff-necked.  I’m not going to follow the Law any more then those dimmies way back then.

Get this.  I think I do.  The only difference between the Israelites then and the pagan giants they would face on the other side of the Jordan was that God had CHOSEN THE Israelites. They hadn’t done, nor would they do, anything to deserve even their own desert island.  Go back to 9:6…

“Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

Me neither.  I haven’t done anything to merit diddly.  God picked me.  I owe Him my life because He picked me up off the street, out of the gutter, when I was unclean, uncouth, unproductive, unfaithful and unholy.  I’m no better now, except I have this little chit that says I’m saved.  It has little more than a stampy seal, might as well be a goodonya gold star.  What’s been done to me is a mystery, just as what God really did with Israel is mystery.  One thing I know from reading (and they sure must have in listening), I owe my Lord big time.

But I’m gonna mess it up.  The only difference between me and the guy down the street walking to the mosque is that I belong to God.  Without that, I’d most likely be planning on holding Circle tonight with candles and incantations, or worse.  It’s been over 5 years since I last practiced magic, and that’s just one thing I owe Him for.  But I’m gonna mess it up.  I am a stiff-necked kid.

So how do I get out of this downward, depressing spiral?  How does the misery get replaced by joy?

I found it in the second part of Deuteronomy which struck me most.  It’s in two different locations.  Deuteronomy 31:16 again, and in 32:44 to the end of the book.

The short part:  “Behold, you will rest with your fathers…”  Moses wasn’t innocent.  He’d screwed up too.  He was banned from the Promised Land for his prior convictions.  But God said “Behold, you will rest with your fathers.”  There’s comfort at the end.  I’ll bet Moses took a little while to digest that part, since the more immediate importance of the next part of the verse likely overwhelmed him.  But when the teacher of Israel finally did recall the first part, I think he would’ve sighed, praised his Lord and been at peace with the fate of his people, for he was given hope, hope that maybe, just maybe his people might even enjoy at the end of their lives.

The other section?  Read it.  I have hope.  Not because I hope I do, but because I know there is hope.

“Then the Lord spoke to Moses that very same day, saying:  ‘Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, across from Jericho; view the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel as a possession; and die on the mountain which you ascend, and be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people; because you trespassed against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh, in the Wilderness of Zin, because you did not hallow Me in the midst of the children of Israel.  Yet you shall see the land before you, though you shall not go there, into the land which I am giving to the children of Israel.’” Deuteronomy 32:48-52

I don’t think there was a condescending tone in there.  I hear a Father who had punishment promises to keep, but He didn’t get extra licks in.  Moses’ last hours were spent in blessing the people of his life’s breadth and in taking the last breaths of his life in panoramic, God-guided view of the long-awaited Promised Land.  Perhaps one final dusk and sunset, with the sun turning the hills and mountains to rose and gold, the waters darkening to mere sparkles, the great trees and plains losing their bright green, fading to the darkness.  And he wasn’t alone.  God was right there with him, pointing it out as Moses’ earthly story drew to a close.

Hope.

Not entirely related, all those words up there.  I just have some thoughts I have stowed in my noggin that seemed to collate this morning.

First, the Palin thing.

I’m not into politics.  There’s just nothing there for me to chew on.  I don’t get the lip-sync thing and all the empty words.  I have a great distaste for ambiguities and the hollow things that fly at all these speeches.  People verbally assaulting each other, digging dirt, promising vast, glorious nothing.  It’s not something I understand.

The emergence of McCain’s Pick has sort of illuminated me.  I actually saw a few minutes of her speech at the convention, saw her kids, was impressed.  I think overall, I was taken by the fact that Palin seems, just, normal.  I like that.

But the point I want to get at here is not about her, but about me.  In the ensuing blog-o-flood upon Palin’s unveiling there is a HUGE amount of discussion about various family values and female roles and general dynamics of why this lady is good for the job.  Why is it okay for her to be on this job?  Why is it okay in light of her family and the baby thing and in relationship with the church.

I have to admit, I learned a lot from cruising the discussions.  I started out skeptical about whether a Mommy should be entering a field that will take all her focus away from her Mommy world.  I didn’t think it was a good idea for a woman to be in charge like this when she has so much to be in charge of right in her family.  Yep, I think I was all mixed up in the difference between worldly and churchly orders.  There is a huge difference between the two.

In the hierarchy God established, were Palin going to be PIC (Priest In Chief), she’d be in the wrong place.  But this government isn’t a Christian government.  It’s a government of the people.  Through all my reading, it’s pretty clear to me that I’ve not thought things too clearly through.  I thought the idea was a bad one.  I inconveniently forgot about a couple of weighty arguments, which, when remembered, cleared the fog.  Margaret Thatcher?  Queen Elizabeth?  Didn’t they manage pretty well?  Weren’t they highly regarded?  I humbly submit that I wasn’t thinking straight.

That done, On to Moses.

It recently occured to me that Moses’ job is a role to be scrutinized.  His life was the epitome of trials, insubordination, frustration and perseverance in leadership.

Mommy and Daddy.  Do we lose it when our kids do that same thing over and over, no matter how many times we chastise, cajole, correct, debate, pray, teach?  Take a look at Moses.  He had the literal presence of God multiple times throughout his career to lend eternally formidable weight to his leadership of the Israelites.  Didn’t work out for him every time, did it?

Teachers.  There are so many moments when we just can’t grasp why our charges just don’t get it.  They’re disruptive, they’re slow to learn, they’re just not interested.  We’re impatient.  1 + 1 = 2 and that should be easy enough to get.  But it doesn’t work.  We’re livid; the refusal to do homework, pay attention, the backtalk and argument all put us at our wits’ end.  We’re teaching straight from the Bible.  We’re giving straight truth with the desire to see kids know what they must to function in the world.  We’re intent on seeing children come to Christ.  But they consistently fall short of our desires.  And we fall short too.  Take a look at Moses.  He’s as prime an example as any of us could ask for.

Moses ran through a generation of history, reviewing every incident during his tenure, when he gave his opening words in Deuteronomy.  He reminded his people of what he had done, what they had done, what God had done, all in pretty good detail.  Take a second look at the list of failures.  Not just the people’s failures, but Moses’ as well.  He lost his temper, he was ready to give up on ‘em more than once.  The appointed leader of the People got fed up, pulled his hair out, even flipped his lid so much that God revoked his admission to the Promised Land.

Are we all not like that?  Both like Moses and like the Children of Israel?  We can’t seem to find success in our teaching and leadership.  We can’t seem to obey our worldly masters or our Lord either.  We arrive easily at wrath and easily at despair.

But God is still with us.  Regardless of our miserable attempts and spectacular failures, He Still Is (I AM).  He forgives us.  He takes more time than we deserve to resolve us into what He wants.  He brings us Home, whether we have lost our temper or given up our temporal hope.  We’re still His children.

Finally, the food thing.

This is more trivial, but it shows a direct impact of God’s putting me together with a family.

I’m terrible about taking care of myself.  I don’t do well at the routine stuff that a bachelor should be able to handle.  Mostly I’m talking about food, here.  I can’t cook.  Not that I Can’t Cook, but that I can’t bring myself to do so.  I just don’t have any desire to get up and just do for me as I should.

I don’t do very well at all when not in what I believe is my natural environment.  When I’m home, it all works.  I don’t always cook there, but I can.  I eat.  I actually remember to make food and eat it.  I remember because of my girls, because of my Wife.  If it’s eat time, I’ll get food going.  If I’m hungry, I’ll figure out food, and usually tune the creation to something the rest will like too, if possible.

At home, I love making Chip-n-Dip for my Beloved.  I love making GPBC or One-Eyed-Monsters for my girls.  I make it, we eat it and we’re happy.  Sunday Special Breakfast is always the rage.  Outside home?  I’m slow, lazy and eat when the body says “or else!”  A reader might harrumph and comment that I’m just plain stupid, failing to take regular time to care for myself.  That reader just don’t get it.  I’m admittedly incompetent at the basics.  I think one of my kids suffers from the same fault, and I begin, slowly, to understand her frustration as well as mine and her mother’s about her.

Some people are naturally capable at everything, or at least capable enough to manage for themselves. I don’t think I got the same gear issued as those Some People.  I think I function fairly well when I’m safely cloaked in my 5, remembering the chores, the duties, the necessities, and I get them done (with joy and satisfaction, too!).  Just not when I’m alone.  There’s a dependency that I have, and it’s not a bad one at all.  I am more than myself when not at home, or maybe I’m more Fully myself then.

There are plenty of other things I just can’t bring myself to deal with when I’m not home.  I won’t detail the long list here, suffice to say it’s fairly annoyingly long.  I just wanted to illuminate the fact that, with out my family, I’m a pretty shoddy human.  God provided a home, a Beloved, an entirely lovely family for me, just as I had hoped for over and over for a very long time.  And that family has benefited me immensely in return.  I wasn’t meant to be a single guy, I’m sure.

Granted, I don’t transform into superhusbandaddy whenever I walk in the front door.  I have bad days, bad weeks.  I don’t make a sweeping victory over the bum in me consistently as I would dearly wish.  But I’m so glad I’m going home.  I’m no good at this single thing, clearly.  Here’s praying that I don’t have to suffer this trial too many more times.

All that done and said…

I found something I want for Christmas (shameless plug).  There’s a new Bible study media out.  The ESV HDNT.  It looks really handy.  I’m a growing fan of the ESV (gave my copy away to a friend in need, so I am on the lookout for another one when I get home).  The HDNT is a really cool potential addition to my slowly growing Bible Study Library.

I love the gimmicks, I admit.  This really does look like a good bit of work, though.  Somebody really thought this out.  Wish they had test-drives available.

And finally (finally finally)

I fiddled with my About Me page.  Nothing much.  Just kinda fleshed it out a little.  Tried to be more poetic and spiffy.

This is the title for Chapter 9 in my study Bible. The passage revisits all sorts of Israelite defiance.

Reading through this chapter reminds me of how I should look at my relationship with the Lord, how I should look at my sin and how I should see Christ and the Spirit as well.

“Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land” (9:4)

“Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.” (9:6)

“You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.” (9:24)

The philosophies we are fed today concerning sin are most often concerned with “feeling good” or “self esteem” and mislead us into brushing off our unrighteousness as a condition that is “just part of the facts of life.” We are told (usually not in clear terms, of course) that avoiding our sinful past and glossing over our failures is the point of being Christian. We become convinced that the past is actually forgotten, not just forgiven, but erased.  There’s a major problem with this, though, if you consider the thoughts below:  What happens to people who buy this bunk that everything is erased, yet still have to face the reminder of sin in their past?

In some ways, this wipe-out thing sounds really good. But it sure doesn’t seem to fit what the Bible says. There isn’t a passage I’ve ever read that says everything is just “gone” when we get saved. There are hundreds of passages about forgiveness, seeking it regularly, and even more about work, failure, suffering, pleading, praying, feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, dirt and plain old misery.  There’s plenty of material written on “progressive sanctification” that all clearly states that our lives are not completely purged of all hint of evil at the moment of our belief.

I hate the times when past sins come back to haunt me. I still get those hackle-raising, embarrassed-flush sensations when I remember what I did with that book long ago, or the candy-bar episode at camp, or that event with that one friend. Remembering some of the insanely sinful activities in my pagan phase causes serious pain sometimes. I wish those memories would get swiped with the magnetic disc destroyer.

But they aren’t going anywhere. And, believe it or not, I think it’s better that way.

I have to be humbled. I must be reminded of my failures. The Lord has blessed me with a bittersweet gift that hurts more often than comforts.

But, like Israel, I don’t rate kindness and fuzzy-faith-facials. I can’t cover up what I was (what I AM). Neither internally nor externally can I pretend that nothing ever happened just because I’m forgiven. Just because I am forgiven doesn’t mean that I won’t return to my old defiance.

Note here: I am not supposing that it is right to dwell on all those past actions or make some sort of repetitive atonement for them. Past sins are covered by the blood of Christ once and for all, and the flashbacks are not indications that we have to revisit forgiveness.  If I seek forgiveness and repent from my sin, that is it, there is not a reflash-watch set to remind me that, oh, say six months from now I have to reset the forgiveness for that particular sin.

This blessing of memory has a practical application. If I am reminded of that which I am capable, in the humbling (sack-cloth and ashes humbling), I don’t get the chance to derail into oblivious false joy in my life.

I am to take joy in:
What Christ Did For Me and in My Relationship With God and that One Day I Will Be Free From This Sinful Condition

The Israelites needed to be kept from reaching the conclusion that the Promised Land had anything to do with their current state of righteousness.  It had nothing to do with their righteousness, but with God’s decision that the people were  His chosen children.  Heaven, my sanctification, my status here-now as a Christian have nothing to do with my righteousness, but everything to do with God’s choice to add me to the Book of Life.  Christ died for me, for all those who come to Him for restoration not because there’s some figure of merit within us that makes us worthy, but simply because we are His creation, His choice and His personal preference.

The periodic review of my screwups, keeping in mind the important fact that Every Single One of them was direct rebellion against the Father, is the most effective prod to keep me in line.  The passages below support the idea that there’s no glossing over my condition and that things aren’t just peachy yet.

We need a mediator still.  We need someone who can speak for us about us to the Father.  We’re not qualified, even if we’re great, high-performance Christians.  The Holy Spirit and Christ have the requisite position to keep the Father from shutting down the factory.  We, the helpless and unworthy, must bow to His mercy as we accept His grace.

Romans 8:26-27 portrays the Spirit as a mediator.

“Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

Christ is the High Priest and Mediator in Hebrews 9:11-15.

“But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption…”

A good take away from this: Sin is not just an activity to be avoided.  Sin is a condition that must be fought against.  As the military studies wars from long ago, we too must understand what sin in history really means.  Starting with how sin impacted the very first humans, how it affected the Jews on their approach to Canaan, how it resulted in Christ’s grisly death and how it will ultimately see the destruction of the world.  Seeing the power and impact of sin, both in the Scriptures and in our personal lives is a course of study that, while painful and tough to face, is very important.  It’s called hamartiology, if you want the fancy term, and there’s a lot to know.

I must admit that Deuteronomy really has been a good project to read and write on, for I have discovered quite a lot of important facts that apply to my life right here (duh, how surprising) in light of the Israelites. This is not just a book of the Law. It’s much more and I encourage anyone who wants to learn more about all this stuff to read the book, carefully and methodically (read: SLOW, SMALL CHUNKS, THINK and PRAY LOTS).

This whole chapter is about obedience, but I am thinking most on the passage from verse 17-26 in particular.

Lots of darkness has been looming these past few weeks.  I am thinking all the time of what good words I can craft together to make wise and encouraging statements to all my suffering loved ones.  What has held me back? How come this blog and the email fog haven’t been stuffed with my prayers and thoughts?  I have a low level of confidence right now, I think, primarily due to an overwhelming sense that I just don’t have the connection to or the right amount of personal importance to say much.

What’s that mean?  First off, I just don’t comprehend some of the trials that are around me.  I can’t wrap my head around things like depression and misery that attacks so many of us.  I’m sure I suffer from mild forms of it from time to time, but I don’t feel like I have experienced it or understand it well enough to be able to be of any value.  In response to the heartache all around, what I have to offer is prayer.  I’m sure I don’t know what more to do.  So often, I come across as preachy (or at least think I do), and “holier-than-thou” in my words.  It’s never my intent, but happens anyway.

I could send cards all over the world.  Pretty Hallmark junk with smarmy gook that really means nothing.  I could type up long letters of “I love you I love you I love you…” but that just doesn’t make much sense to me either.  I figure whatever I do would potentially evolve into a self-deprecation episode just to make the recipient feel better because they’re not as bad off as me.  “If my misery is worse than your misery, then you must be okay, right?”  Believe me, I’ve done that plenty of times before, and it’s downright stupid (as well as lying both to myself and others).

And this little article is just rambling along.  I’m trying to get into a groove that will open up what I want to say.  Not sure if that’ll happen.

Look, if you’re down and you’re in the dark; if all that seems worthwhile is worthless, if the things that drive you just took you off the pavement and into the brush, it just doesn’t seem of any value for me to remind you that I love you, that I’m thinking of you, that I’m praying for you.  Many of us are all praying for each other.  Many of us are thinking of all the ways we might be able to encourage each other.  And we all either goof up the attempts or give up on them before the attempts are even made.  When the chips are down, the crowd scatters, apparently.

Here’s what keeps me going when I’m battling sin or loneliness or whatever else burdens me here.  It’s a roller-coaster battle here in FarFar Away, with good days and rotten ones.  I remember the claims in the Word here, like this one:

“If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’  you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember well what the Lord your God did to pharaoh and to all Egypt:  the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs and the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out.”

He did for them and promised the same to us.

In short, the whole of chapter 7 can be summed in a little bitty memo-sized comment:

• FROM: God
• TO: You
• SUBJECT: Stopped by while you were out of the office.

• OBEY.  DO IT LIKE I TOLD YOU.  THEN EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT.  YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE AFRAID.  I ALREADY DEMONSTRATED WHAT I’LL DO FOR YOU TO PROTECT AND HOLD YOU UP.  YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE AFRAID.  EVERYTHING WILL BE ALRIGHT.  DO IT LIKE I TOLD YOU.  OBEY.
• ACTION:  Please Return Call

I can’t stress enough the things that I hold most valuable in this little life of mine.  I am not very good at keeping them in front of me, but they tend to serve in a crisis:

1.  Material things are junk.  Enjoy them.  Despise them.  Be responsible how you use them.  Whatever you like as long as they don’t interfere with your relationship with the Master.  They’re gifts from Him, not replacements for Him.  YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU.  I always WANT things.  I always want BETTER things.  I always do BETTER when I stop WANTING things.  There are few things I should want.  Take all the crust and toppings away and here’s what I want:   MY HEALTH, MY FAMILY, MY GOD.  All the colorful bits swirling around me distract me from this simple list of three things.

2.  When crisis hits, there is only one way out.  A Christian knows what this out is.  Do it.  There is always a Godly choice, and to choose anything else is going to end up likely worsening the whole thing.  Even if the Godly route is WAIT, there is one, and it’s there.  I don’t do well with this unless it’s a real big problem.  Little ones are just as important, but I have the faulty habit of cruising along until I get into neck-deep hoo-hoo before looking to God for the answers  Literally, when the pain begins, I must drop the toys I’m holding and run for the hills wherein the Lord’s will awaits.

In Matthew 4:18-20, Jesus enlists His first disciples.  They drop EVERYTHING when He calls them.  No grabbing the keys or loose change.  No quick donning of overcoats or looking for the cellphone.  They up and left, lit a shuck, DESERTED their immediate activities to follow Him.  They were called to a lifetime of service, and see where it led them?  We are called to do the same thing.  Every day we are called.  In this material world, it’s like every morning is the same scenario that happened ONCE for the first disciples.  We’re at our business, oblivious to everything when suddenly Christ calls us up, and, like Groundhog Day, it happens OVER and OVER and OVER, every day of our lives.

Moreover, we trust too much in people.  We put our faith in them, rather than in our Lord.  There’s a big difference between trust and TRUST.  When I compare myself, base myself on the people around me, there are two possible results:  I’m either inadequate or I’m superior.  Both are wrong.  I must look at myself through Christ’s eyes, and then I will see the truth of me.

I am most certainly inadequate and hopelessly helpless in comparison to God.  Yet He has given me hope, help and value.  I am His tool for His work.  When I am not acting like a proper tool for His will, I am a failure.  I must keep myself sharp, well balanced and clean.  Most of all, my condition is all the “payment” I can offer for the incalculable blessing and sacrifice that He made for me.  In Romans, the very first two verses of chapter 12, my condition and why I should be as He commands is succinctly laid on the table.  Because it’s my new status as a child of God.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

I, you, we, all live too much in the world.  We fret, we hobble ourselves, we flay ourselves, we weep and gnash our teeth in our little hells, for we fail to comprehend what God has done, what He has ordered and what He has promised.

Parting thoughts:

Though the pain is an ocean,

tossing us around and around,

You have calmed greater waters

and higher mountains have come down.

I will sing of Your mercy that leads me through valleys of sorrow to rivers of joy.

Return to the Word, all of us.  Open our minds and hearts to our Master and despise the trickery and misery that this world insists is our nature.  We are Not Of This World.  Here is my prayer.  That we pursue Him instead of us.

“These tears I’ve cried, I’ve cried a thousand oceans.” But we can take joy despite our tears, for none of this is forever.  The darkness will fade as the Son rises to claim us.  Just remember, He’s already done so, and all we’re waiting for now is His personal visit to bring us to our Only Home.

uestion to provoke thought:  Why is it that every few sections in this book, there are repetitive statements of promised benefits for obedience?  Specifically, have you noticed all the statements that contain “that it may be well with you,” are peppered all over Deuteronomy?  This isn’t really so much a question as an observation that I think is rather important.

God is telling Israel over and over again, “Don’t do this, Do that.”  And, “If you do, it will be well with you.”  And God is constantly giving to the Israelites, all through the book.  Just in this passage alone, there are a bunch of gifts, commands, conditions and promises for the People.

“So it shall be, when the Lord your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities, which you did not build, houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant — when you have eaten and are full — then beware, lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.  You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name.” — 10-13

There was a ton of giving in that last bit.  And pretty clear warning for just the appropriate time, too.  When do we forget our Lord?  When we’re fat, dumb and happy.  Too busy enjoying ourselves to be bothered to pay God His due, we waste away our time in enjoying His creation without including Him.  Sure, God made everything and told us to enjoy.  It says so right here on the box, right?  Yeah, but He made us for His glorification.  One doesn’t work without the other.

“You shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted Him in Massah.  you shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, His testimonies, and His statutes which He has commanded you.  And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land of which the Lord swore to your fathers, to cast out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has spoken.” –16-19

There’s the “be well” bit right there.  But what more?  Note the “right and good” statement.  Taken in context, we are not commanded simply to do what is right and good.  Note this.  Here’s where many, many of us go wrong, not because we don’t understand this passage, but because we don’t think about it in the first place.  The command here is “Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord.”  How many times have we worried about what’s “right” or “good” in the sight of the world?  And how many times have we held our hands from doing what looks wrong to the world when we knew durned well that it was absolutely right and good in God’s will?

Let’s just chase this rabbit for a moment.  Discipline;  Dirty word in our society.  We daren’t “discipline” our children in public.  We certainly cannot lift ourselves up so high as to bring correction to a fellow worker or even a subordinate.  If someone is doing wrong, we often find ourselves with tied hands (half the time of our own choice), unable to do anything about it.  And I am willing to bet — no, strike that — I’m willing make that oath mentioned in verse 13, that if we are doing what is right in God’s sight, and it is in His will, His guidance, His Word that we are supposed to be “hard” or “tough” or chastising or “mean” as the world views it, then He’s going to back us.

Look at what Chapter 7 says.  Look at all the MEAN things, CRUEL and WASTEFUL and HORRID things that God told the People to do with Canaan’s 7 nations. That’s what the world would call them.  That’s what the politicians would call it if the US did that with all the places in which we are fighting today.  But God’s view is NOT the world’s view and therefore when He told the Israelites to move in, sans mercy, efficiency or economy, He was right when He said it, They were right when they did it, and we are right when we tell it (as directed in verses 20-25).  We have to get this through our thick skulls that if God says it’s so, then  It.   Is.   SO.  No arguments.

Which brings me to one of my favorite thoughts on being a Christian, on having the Bible.

6:20-25 “When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded you?’  Then you shall say to your son:  ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand; and the Lord showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe, against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household.  Then He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers.  And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day.  Then it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us.’”

We, Christians, are the recipients of The Greatest Story Ever Told.  It’s filled with all the best types of literature, it’s all true, it’s all fantastic, miraculous, fascinating and it’s real.  We have THE legacy.  Not a legacy, but THE legacy.  I love that.  I’m a fantasy nut, loving those high-adventure stories and majestic images and all that.  The Bible leaves them all so far behind that it may as well be none of my other favorite books need have been written in the first place.

It’s not just the children of the Israelites who need to hear the meaning of all this.  It’s us, it’s our children.  They need to hear the coolest story, the Only True Story that really counts.  They SHOULD hear what happened here to Israel, because every single day of their lives is so very similar to the challenges, the commands and the temptations the People faced.

We are tempted to have mercy on the sins here in our lives and in others’ lives.  We are tempted to marry into the enemy’s hands.  We are tempted to return to the captivity from which God delivered us.  We constantly build golden images and fall on our faces before them.

And God constantly promises us blessings for perseverance, punishment for giving in, constant molding and shaping to fit us to His image and trimming and pruning most painfully to get the dead parts of us off.

But look at the story.  It’s so true and so relevant.  If you think the Bible is outdated, that the bronze and iron-age fables in the OT and NT are just too antiquated to be of use, read ‘em again in light of the blessings God has given you personally and in light of the sin God wants you to fight personally.  What a few thousand Jews faced thousands of years ago, in comparison to what one of us faces today, is really quite similar, I think.  At least as far as God, His Commandments, His Promises and His Point of View are concerned.  The Bible is also not just True or Eternal, it is PERSONAL.  It is the roadmap to salvation, to Eternity, to restoration.

Boiled down.  I think I need to, and most everyone I know needs to as well, concentrate constantly on what God’s view of things really is.  Actions and attitudes the world percieves as wrong, is not accurate nine-times-out-of-ten, according to God’s Revelation of Himself.  The converse, what the world says is right, is also inaccurate just as often. And it’s because they don’t believe this story is true.  We have to separate ourselves from the world’s viewpoint.  We need to take God’s promises as truth, we need to look through the clear glass of His window into the world, rather than the funky cool shades with which we were born.  It’s not cool to be cool when God says it’s not cool.

tell the kids “Did you throw out the trash today?  Did you put on your armor?”  Throwing out the trash means getting rid of the fighting, lying,  selfishness and all the other junk we keep stored in our pockets.  Putting on armor means just what we normally think of, the Holy Spirit Gear from Ephesians 6:13-20.

Of course, the two really go hand in hand.  Here’s how we do it.  Prayer, self discipline and conscious choice to throw out the trash.  We recognize and then choose to stop our sin.  Then we have a “clean house,” organized and set up the way God wants it.  The trick to all this, though, is putting the armor on immediately upon cleaning house.  We have to replace that empty spot where the sin was or it’ll just come right back.  There’s a story about demons doing just the same thing, retaking territory from which they were recently expelled, returning with more force than they’d had originally.

This is what I read about in Deuteronomy today.  I read about the commands God taught to Moses.  I read how God was pleased with Israel’s words and thoughts concerning sending Moses to collect the message for them.  God said they were right to fear Him and that He wanted them to always have that fear, so that they would obey Him and prosper because of it.

The reward for obedience is not really what I’m looking into here, but the process, which has its own reward.

First, in 5:32,

“Therefore you shall be careful  to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.  You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.”

We’re to stay on the straight path.  We can’t allow ourselves to be distracted from the Lord’s big picture.  His plan, His will, His Word, all are our highway to heaven and a detour could prove disastrous.  He didn’t give us gas enough to run off into the back woods, looking for cool decals for our car or spiffy tires.  The Lord has set us on our path.  I am constantly (most recently) guilty of being distracted.  I’ve been away from my studies for a few weeks now.  Very little activity in the Word, very little time taken to be with the Lord.  What’s wrong with this picture?  Some is better than none, right?  WRONG for me.  What did the verse just say?  It’s not a gray-area sort of verse.  It says “You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you.”  Not “You shall usually walk,” or “in most all the ways,” but “Shall Wallk In All The Ways.”

And what are His ways?  Let’s look at verse 4 in Chapter 6.  It’s HUGELY important.

“Hear, O Israel:  The Lord our God the Lord is one!  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

Here’s the pretty disappointing comparison.  I love my Wife.  Dearly.  I think of her many many times every day.  The same goes for my children.  I love my 5 more than anything else in this world. But I have trouble remembering to think of my Lord even a couple of times a day.  I don’t have to choose to think of my girls.  I have to choose to think of my Lord.  There is something SERIOUSLY wrong here.

What happened?  Simply put, I have failed in choosing rightly, and I have failed to clean out my trash and keep the Armor fitted out as should be.  I’ve chosen to spend my time in things not part of God’s specific will for my life.  I’ve allowed these things to distract me.  Dragging me away from my relationship with Him are my worries, my wasteful pastimes, my focus on everything except Him.  I have failed to take action as Deuteronomy 6:6-9 prescribes:

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.  you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

Where is God in all the turnings of my life?  He’s packaged up in this thick book on my desk.  He’s in my pocket, to be pulled out in times of need or in rejoicing.  I haven’t put His words on  every corner of my house or put Him in my speech at all times of the day.  I have not talked of the Lord’s ways and words.  So my “neat and orderly” mind has become a receptacle for everything else which is not of God.  My life that is so blessed and wondrous with my 5 and all the successes and great things has become dirty and dusty with the back roads to which I’ve taken.

I have not kept the rules I set for my own family.  I haven’t taken out the trash and I haven’t put on the armor.  I haven’t kept my head in the Word, my eyes on His viewpoint, my mouth is not afire for His Message and my ears itch for everything other than His Gospel.

So I must repent, throw out the trash, bind His words upon my brow and hold them in my hand.  I must sharpen this iron sword of mine and renew the communication I have through Christ.

And I must turn toward my family with the same passion and demonstrate to them what this Godly path entails.

Then the reward, the effect of keeping the Lord’s commandments:  “that your days may be prolonged, that it may be well with you.”  What more could we ask for?

This is a pretty simple article.  Simple tends to mean the most, however.  Simply straying from the daily routine with God has some pretty significant consequences.  The benefits of simply keeping things going with the Lord have some pretty significant (and more enjoyable) results.

Look, living the life of Loving our Lord does not have to be intentionally complicated and rule-based.  There certainly are no inherent or required twisty turns to take or confusing roadsigns.  Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.  If we practice all these things.  If we do what LOVE means (WANTING TO PLEASE HIM in everything we do), never wanting to disappoint Him, never ignore Him, bring Him gifts of love, then we’re doing it right.  I am capable of inventing all the complications for my life with Him, and yet I’m wrong every time.

It’s simple.  God puts a plate in front of you and you eat it.  God asks for your love and you give it.  It’s not like He’s hard to love.  He has given us more in love than we can possibly take in or understand.  It’s in the Bible.  Read the Bible just to see what love our Lord has given.  Read the Bible again to see what He is like so we can, being loving children, emulate His ways.  Simple.  Not complicated.

Note, there’s the mention of strength in the verse above.  Yep.  It’s simple, but sometimes it’s really hard, too.  That’s why we’re to love Him with all our strength, too.  We have to use our strength to cling to God and His ways even in our dark days, our bad phases, those times when we’re off in the Otherland, pursuing our personal, selfish agendas.  When other people provide the distraction, the disappointment, the pain that lures us away from our Lord, we must put all our strength into staying on the path.  That is why keeping the armor on, staying in His ways no matter what is so essential.

The way to do this is prayer, reading, practicing, living God’s ways.  In bad or good.  Good enough.

nd the point of the last five commandments is to deal severely with the well developed sense of pride and selfishness all we sinners have. Each of them direct us to abstain from the chief sins that are a result of the pursuit of our personal, Godless agendas.

“You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

The first murder was done in anger, of course, but we’ve determined already that pride had to do with it. One who is not God-centered in his view of himself and the world will exhibit tendencies to react sinfully, and absolutely selfishly to the impact of his actions and those of others. The impact of Cain’s actions, along with what happened to Abel, grew hatred and jealousy in Cain. I envision Cain stewed in God’s rejection of his sacrifice, hating how his brother was “better than him” and that Abel had done well in God’s sight.

Here’s the catch.

We tend to get spun up, jealous, angry and vengeful when we are caught in the wrong and try to defend our actions to ourselves and others. We become defensive and spiteful when we perceive our reputation or character is slighted, especially if we have done wrong. Our status, our pride is our most prized possession. We’ll fight like cornered cats to protect our self image, regardless of the validity of the real or perceived attack.

Children react and move more overtly than adults, but they haven’t developed the incredibly efficient circuitry to really spin up that jealousy whirlwind that so consumes adults. Kids are raw force, where adults are calculating, patient and careful. That being said, the process from jealousy to its fruits is very apparent in kids. Adults tend to bottle everything up, conceal and essentially protect themselves from being “caught on tape” most of the time (though in current society, adults seem to be leaning more toward the childish version).

We can see the process best in school age kids, I think. When one is praised out of a group, that child tends to become ostracized by the others. This is especially true if that one child was the only one doing the right thing or if the praise is repeatedly focused toward that one. The term “teacher’s pet” is used in the adult world today, but without quite the vicious connotation as in elementary school. The teacher’s pet was frequently the nerd, outcast or goody-goody that most kids hated because he was better than they were (or at least perceived to be so). Though superiority wasn’t always the case, often it would be. The pet did things the right way, according to the standards.

I read Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card, and there is a lot of use of this effect for purpose. Ender, the main character, is a 7 year old boy who has been selected to be the greatest military strategist and commander in history. He’s been monitored since he was a baby by the military to see if he had the mental prowess, the moral character and all the other things it would take to be a great general (or admiral, as space stuff is usually considered naval in nature).

On his first day, heading off in a rocket to the military combat school, the first thing his sponsor did was isolate him. Ender was immediately able to grasp the nature of null gravity, and was the only one of all the kids on the rocket to do so. This would’ve been fine and dandy, with no issues, but the commander on the flight noticed it and not only called Ender out in praise for his superiority, but also chided the other children in comparison to Ender. This served to isolate Ender and make all the other kids begin the trip to despising him.

The intent of the commander was very purposeful. Ender, if isolated, would come to rely only on himself for success, and would grow independently from the others. And Ender was exactly the superior mind and spirit that the commander praised on the ship. This public praise and comparison to other kids was repeated a few other times in the battle school while Ender and the other kids were being trained.

All this, both Ender’s excellence and the special treatment from the military directors of the school, served to alienate him from nearly every other kid. He became the best combatant, the best tactical leader and even the best teacher in the entire school, and the jealousy abounded. Especially, the older kids who were around 12 or 13 years old, about to graduate and far more seasoned than Ender, could not abide Ender’s superiority. They hated him. They despised him and were jealous beyond petty rivalry.

Near the end of the Ender’s time at the school, several of the boys, led by one who was in the lowest bracket of intelligence and talent in the school, plotted to ruin Ender. They did the standard bully-in-the-locker-room routine and intended to beat him up real good. They wanted to restore their superiority in their minds and in Ender’s, and make sure everyone knew they were better than Ender.

It didn’t work out. Ender had learned a lot (this was about 3 years into his training), and in his isolation (he’d figured out that the leaders introduced and tolerated this mean stuff on purpose), he had realized that if he could only rely on himself for survival or success, that he needed to become absolute in his dealings with challenge.

So rather than try to run (impossible anyway), Ender coldly calculated the battle with the older boys, manipulated the leader so that it would be a one-on-one fight (usually bullies like the “hold him while I hit him” tactic) and proceeded to savagely defeat his opponent. Ender’s philosophy of this fight was simply to win the fight and then win all the other future fights all at once, right here, because he might never get another chance at a face to face scenario. So he was vicious, ruthless and exacting in his fighting. He ended up killing his opponent, though he didn’t know it.

It’s a very sobering story. It’s also extremely important to consider for many reasons. I recommend reading the whole book.

But let’s start with a little bit on temptation:

“Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. James 1:12-15″

The culture in which we live today is one of murder, or at least one of potential murder. We live in a spiral of death, of annihilation. All things not of God lead to destruction. At some point, every act of murder, adultery, theft, false witness and jealousy boils down to a root of selfishness. Eventually, every product of selfishness boils down to a result called murder. Pride, or selfishness, is the source, for we are all too self-righteous, self-centered and self-promoting to even consider acts of God’s righteousness on our own. And all of those unholy qualities lead to death. We cannot ignore this.

Here’s a truth. I believe in the concept of total depravity. I lean toward Calvinism in my understanding of God (through experience with God, not assent to Calvin, just in case there’s another label-hater reading). All people are depraved. They don’t have a shred of Godliness in them. I do not mean absolute depravity, though, in which each of us is the complete fulfillment of the potential depravity we can reach. That’s silly. God would’ve wiped the slate and done away with us all were we all absolutely depraved. But the fact that we are not absolutely depraved right now does not eliminate the possibility that we could proceed on the course to the depths of our miserable natures. There are plenty of horrid examples of the absolute depraved potential of people in the news and in history.

Here’s what happened to the boys in the battle school. They were left to themselves with no moral guidance. There was no lesson in cohabitation with other people other than the fact that the children were made to live together and work together. The leaders who emerged were either those who had an innate sense of social conduct or were of the old warlord stock, with all the bullying, manipulation and coercive skills needed to make a functional team out of chaos. There was no God, no representative of God (church community, fellowship, pastor, Bible) to bridge the gap between depravity and the concept of Godliness.

When left to its own devices, sin becomes consuming, eventually all-consuming, and devours our potential goodness (that which God finds pliant to His will). Sin, specifically what I believe is the root Sin of selfishness, becomes the center of our lives and eventually leads to destruction. As the unsaved world is heading toward ultimate destruction, individual lives are constantly, by ones and twos and even whole groups, already meeting that destruction, daily.

I sympathize with Ender, of course, as most would who have read the book. Ender was special in that he had an extremely overwhelming gift of intellect and the capability to understand things in his youth that adults have trouble grasping in their age and experience. Ender was a genius and not one of the autistic variety or idiot-savant. He was a fully functional mastermind, even in his youth.

His family was a perfect training ground in moral or social dilemmas. His brother and sister were just as fantastically gifted as he was. The difference between the three was critical, though. Ender’s brother was devoid of moral character (I know this is a fuzzy term, but bear with me). Ender’s sister was immensely sensitive and sympathetic.

The brother was vicious and manipulative. He intuitively knew the weaknesses of people and understood the methods by which he could control people via their characteristics. The sister was just the opposite, able to get what she wanted, motivating people by playing on their sympathies and desires and being able to use collaboration in order to create results that not only satisfied her, but served her subject as well. One sibling was a controller and the other was a builder.

Ender was torn between these two. The brother hated him. The sister adored him. Neither was able to truly manipulate Ender as they could others, since Ender was their mental equivalent. The sister protected Ender from brother, and brother tormented both. This, I think, is Ender’s sole source of any moral “conscience” in the book. In the battle school, he despises the way the military commanders manipulated him into isolation and allowed the crises of bullies and other insanity to build Ender into the warrior they wanted. Ender hated the rivalry that became murder around him, and absolutely hated the conflict between people, the way others related to him and each other in a context of superiority, dominance and reputation. Ender was the best humanistic attempt at Christian character that could be devised without God.

Unfortunately, Ender is a false presentation. A sinner, left to his own devices, like Ender, is not going to get anywhere. Sure, everything may look like cake and ice cream, but hell still awaits, arms wide and appetite unsatisfied. Humanity lauds the self-motivated, self-reliant man. He who can make moral decisions and attain success, be kind, considerate and wise on his own is the ideal man. Ender’s Game supports this idea that independence and excellence are the goal for mankind.

Christians must know that this is a false reality. We cannot depend on ourselves for anything. We cannot trust ourselves as Ender grew to trust himself, or as the other characters in the book trusted Ender (at the end). We have but one trustworthy source of become the ideal man.

So the rabbit trail has petered out (no pun intended).

God is opposed to murder. We are, as a race, agreeing with Him in word, but not in truth. Our selfishness breeds hate, every time. 1st John 3:14-15 puts everything clearly, not as a proclamation, but as a statement of FACT.

“We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

God told us not to murder. We should realize that the Ten Commandments are written as if a classroom rules list for little children. To understand God and His ways, and then understand the world’s mode of operation we should ultimately grasp that, properly, we have no need to adhere specifically to the Ten Commandments. Get this: I am not saying we can ignore them but that we advance from the simple (see spot run) to the real concept behind the Commandments and thereby keep them not as rules but as a comprehensive way of life because of our New Nature In Christ. We should know, must know, that our sin leads to death. Not just our own death, but the death of our relationships, the death of other people, the death of our effects, everything either in one or two aspects or all at once.

Self-righteousness leads to Jealousy leads to anger leads to action leads to destruction leads to guilt leads to Self-righteousness leads to Jealousy leads to anger leads to action leads to destruction.

There are all sorts of variations of this model, but they’re all essentially the same.

• Covet = hatred
• Theft = hatred
• infidelity = hatred
• Hatred = murder

They all boil down to the concentrated base ingredient: selfishness and they all result in the same distilled product: death.

The opposite of this, what Ender needed, what all the other children needed in the book, was Christ. They, We, need the insertion of the only opposing element to our natures. We need God’s nature impressed over our own. God does not act in ungodly ways, is righteous and loving and absolute. We must understand, accept and pursue His nature, replacing our miserable absolutes with His divine absolutes. Only then can we adhere to the spirit of the Ten Commandments. The goal should be to outgrow the simplistic, codified List of do/don’t do items and live in the real, fundamental commands Christ provided for our New Option, abiding in Him.

“Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, ‘Which is the fist commandment of all?’

“Jesus answered him, ‘The first of all the commandments is “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’” Mark 12:28-31″

ommands that are not God specific come next. We can’t forget, however, that whatever we “do to the least of these” is what we do to Him, and in loving our Fellows, both brethren and the unsaved is integral to our loving God (Matthew 25:40 and 1st John 3:16-17).

First, what I think is the most striking commandment of all of them. Notice the uniqueness of #5:

“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”

Not one other of the Ten Commandments is specific as this in regards to persons. In the first 4, God is specifically a recipient of the action (or inaction) directed by the commandment. In the last 5, the instructions deal with X where X = any fellow man, whether or not he is a Christian.

Here is why this is so significant:

Ephesians 6:2 refers to Number 5 as “the first commandment with a promise.” This is true in that a specific reward is promised, that of long life and “wellness.”

This “wellness” pretty much can be explained by what every kid knows by the age of 3 or so, likely even earlier (I have one who knew well the difference between well and not well by the age of 6 months). Peace with parents is the very first peace a child encounters. It is often the very last peace, as well, depending on how the child encounters the world later on.

My Wife and I preach this to our kids on a regular basis. I firmly believe it is paramount to a stable family to instill the value of honoring parents before most anything else. My parents demanded the same thing and my strongest memories are those in which I failed to honor them. Life was pretty smooth – it was well with me – when I did right by my Mom and Dad, so well in fact that I don’t remember much but feeling safe, secure and comfortable.

But those bad days when I was strung up on the wall, whacked, grounded and everything else? I REMEMBER those times, probably every one. It was NOT well with me and my life may well have been shortened by the consequences of some of the stunts I pulled when I did not honor my parents.

Most importantly of all, PAY ATTENTION: This commandment is the foundation for all the other commandments.

How so?

What is a child’s very first exposure in the world? PARENTS. What are the tangible landmarks in a human life?

Birth, birthdays, graduations, marriage, parenthood, grandparenthood, death and somewhere in there, hopefully, salvation.

How many of these are directly related to parents? Almost guaranteed, every single one of these involves having or being parents. INCLUDING salvation. Salvation is the claiming of the ultimate parent, God.

If parents are not honored, all of the course of life is disturbed, tragically. Parents are the foundation for every other relationship and authority role in existence. Being subordinate to anything is first demonstrated by parents. Additionally, all the imprinting of what a leader is supposed to be like is founded in the parents’ demonstration.

Child to parent

Christian to pastor

Student to teacher

Worker to supervisor

Youth to senior

Christian to God

This truth is key to incredible amounts of issues in our culture, and has impact that strikes so far down the road that even the great prophets from Israel would have a hard time predicting it. Our kids, raised by us, have Mom and Dad as their first and sometimes ONLY role model for honor, both submissive and authoritative for up to ONE THIRD OF THEIR LIVES!

Let’s reverse this, as I like to do, and see what will happen if we don’t Honor Father and Mother.

Kids won’t know how to honor teacher? Bad conduct in school or bad performance. Bad job later on. Bad parenting skills. More bad conduct or performance by grandkids… ad nauseum…

See what this means?

Go back to Deuteronomy 5:9.

“…visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,”

Many of us wonder that a just and loving God could extend punishment to this extreme. I don’t, for it is as obviously a natural course as that of a flash flood in the desert following the wash. Start with the wrong ingredients, and you will finish with the wrong product. Plant the wrong seeds and you will end up with the wrong plant which, allowed to propagate, will continue the wrong generations of plants to follow. It’s simple and alarming all at once.

How does this commandment govern the others, again?

I am not going to have a clear understanding of what it means to honor God if I did not start with an understanding of honoring my parents. This idea debunks the theory that we all have a “little bit” of goodness or God-likeness to our natures and will all eventually come to know Him by default. If my parents don’t demonstrate their love and submission to God, I will not know it when I see it. Therefore salvation will, depending on God’s will, be more difficult to receive, and may well prove a challenge in further Christian growth as well.

This is not to say that GUBAs (Grown Up Born Again) have it easy. They have specific challenges that somebody like me, for instance, will likely never face.

I am not going to have much skill in honoring my fellow men in the manner of Commandments 6-10 if I don’t already have that concept imprinted by my parents. Parents demonstrate as well as teach honor. If I learn to respect Mom and Dad and abide with their ways, I will at least have the guidelines to proceed similarly with others.

Can I stress this enough? Doubtful. Here’s a thought for exercise. Find any parenting book and test it against the parenting instructions in the Bible. Starting with Commandment #5 and Ephesians 6, continuing to the guides of 1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:6, and more examples of love and honor in Genesis 28:7, Hebrews 12:9 and Proverbs 13:1.

A case can (and should) be made that honoring parents is the first, most important thing for a child to learn after breathing and eating (sleeping and eating what’s provided with minimal mess both being part of honoring parents, of course).

In essence, I think I’ve also validated Mother’s day and Father’s day, so without Further Ado:

HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY TO MY MOM!

Thank you for instilling in me the knowledge of what honoring means. I pray wholeheartedly that I might honor you every day of my life, with distinction and love (or at least love and innovation?)

.

And

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO MY BELOVED!

I pray I will honor you all the days of my life, in deed and thought (and coffee!).

And for all you other Mommies out there, Heather, Laura, Tori, Lydia et all,

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO YOU TOO!

I’m proud of you all!

n to the remainder of the Ten Commandments. It’s imperative to recognize once again how much speech Moses dedicated to the first two, so I am reading that part again before I start writing this part.

Points that ring in my mind:

We are to fear God. For a Christian, this fear is akin to that of our parents, one of healthy respect that if we please them, we will see the joy of being their children. But if we fail to obey and show our respect, we will see the penalty, painful in some way or another. It is not a panicked, irrational fear experienced by the unsaved when they face God’s presence, but a knowledge that we will be disciplined, chastised as required for our sin. Big difference.

God Himself put these commandments out. He didn’t “inspire” Moses to come up with them. He wrote them and gave them to Moses. We cannot forget that this Bible of ours is of God. Of God does not mean merely “in the likeness” or after God, but inspired-breathed-out by Him. He didn’t hire an agent to get the gist of things down on a sheet of paper, tuned to the ears of the media. God is the writer, producer and editor of this book, and he included nothing but truth on every page.

Idolatry leads to corruption. It’s not just that God is a selfish God, and will have no other between Him and His worshipers. Idolatry redirects our lives away from God, which will inevitably result in sinful choices. A worldly deity will demand this, period. Even should we fool ourselves into thinking it’s safe to pursue our little gods so long as we give the greater deference to the Chief God, we are still deeply corrupting our relationship with Him. All or none is what God demands, for good reason. He is the ONLY source of godliness in all existence.

God promises mercy. He knows we’re going to make those little god choices and though He proclaims His anger will be provoked by such things, He is faithful and will forgive us upon our repentance. Our actions will result in punishment but our repentance will result in restoration to His grace.

Now back to the headlines.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.”

There are all sorts of discussions about what this means. The greatest misuse of His name is still that of oaths. When we swear something to be true, calling upon our God as a witness, we are doing several things at once. First, we are claiming that the matter at hand, requiring an oath, is at the level of God’s interest. I’ll make a bet that 999 out of 1,000 times, this is not the case and we are calling upon God’s ultimate cosmic authority to render valid an argument as silly as “who hit which car with another car because of gross negligence, causing monetary damages etc…”

Why in the world would we do this? God may indeed have His hand in the daily incidents, but do we have the ability to invoke His power to govern our arguments in such mundane things? Foolishness. There are plenty more applications of the name of the Lord, namely that of calling upon Him to witness our silliness and unthinking ways, to include that ultimately wasteful and inappropriate call for Him to damn something. Almost all of this is now a matter of simply not thinking about what we’re saying. Loose lips sink respect for God.

“Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days shall you labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”

As I’m reading and typing these down here, I am reminded (and amazed) at all the ridiculous perversions of the Commandments we have developed over the ages. Pharisaical is still a valid descriptive in the 21st Century. Our current culture doesn’t work with the misconception that no work will be done on Sunday (or Saturday or whatever). How in the world can it work in the first place?

I’m a sailor. I fight in wars and wars go on about 9 or 10 days a week, about 29 hours per day and they’ve jammed so many minutes into an hour that I’m lost trying to keep track of them. I do not have the opportunity to observe the pharisaical Sabbath. Will not any time soon. So how do we reconcile with God’s commandment? On His Day (which is technically Every Day), honor Him even more specifically than on the other days. More purposefully, attend services, spend all those free moments, usually occupied in goofing off and playing around, with God in prayer, meditation, praise, fellowship.

There are many excellent reasons for the Sabbath, whether a truly restful and God-centered entire day or one that requires work of some sort. God-centered is the main requirement. We spend so much time in the world that we easily forget our place before Him. We must take the time to manually reset our spiritual states. Should we abide in Him, we will find our rest in Him and our Lord will give us the means to continue on in His service. Even in my days of endless work, I can find the time (praise Him) to stop, check and redirect my paths.

That’s the work for this reading session. I have now covered all the God-specific commandments. He is God. He is to be the Sole Focus of our lives. Therefore no other “god” can come between us and Him. No degrading of His Name should pass our lips. We are to specifically set time to regain our composure in Him.

hould Christians obey the Ten Commandments? There are all sorts of confusing debates around today about this. Many discussions center around our freedom from the Law. Our Christian Liberty and all that stuff. I would like to make simple statements that clarify it, at least for me. The Ten Commandments are codified basic identifications of God and His people. Any Christian who denies the facts resident in each of the Ten Commandments is operating on completely flawed circuitry.

I sort of grouped the first part of 5 in with all that stuff in 4. Though it’s sort of skipping around, it all works out. This part of 4 is just dealing with the first two that are in 5, which are so important that Moses spent a considerable amount of time on speaking on them separately.

Idolatry is still around today, and it is harder and harder to find someone who assents to the following and then actually proceeds to adhere to it:

“You shall have no other gods before Me.

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image — any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (Deuteronomy 5:7-8)”

Granted, not too many people are about with soapstone and file making mini-gods or buying golden cattle from local idol dealerships.

I’ll be everyone will guess what I’m going to say next.

Try these on for size:

• Work
• Car
• Clothing
• Social events
• Sports
• Computers
• Appearance
• House
• Neighbors’ opinions
• Politics
• Money

What we do with our lack of money has a tendency to govern our lives as much as if we had excess. The lack of any of these can be just as devastating and idolatrous.

We have ready made gods here on the crust that are just waiting for us to adore and serve them. Is it any surprise in our “I got it” culture that we don’t actually have to go out and carve our deities from raw material? And the amazing thing is that our new and improved idols are interactive. Rocks don’t speak, but computers do. Our money blesses us and curses us as we worship it.

Here’s more Deuteronomy:

“Take Careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. (Deuteronomy 4:15-18)”

What is in creation is God’s creation. He’s expressly forbidden worship of any element in creation. Furthermore, at the beginning of this passage, God has explained this as well by asserting that He is Spirit, not a physical object. So we’ve now covered all of tangible and visible things. Can’t worship them.

Christians are in a tight place. By God’s standards, we are incapable of doing anything without His help. Therefore, left to our own devices, we’re bound to fall into idolatry. We’ll worship anything that moves (or doesn’t), from our kids to our spouses to our bosses and even our pastors. We’ll bend knee to our pastimes and jobs, all the while thanking God for His benevolence in giving us these things.

Worse of all things is self. We don’t need anything outside our little bodies (that He made) to worship. We worship our own ideas, our own successes, our beauty, our uses of our bodies, any aspect of the physical and mental us.

Being the victim is the ultimate subversive form of idolatry. We all tend revel in our miserable state. We compare our imperfection, our admitted need to those who “flaunt” their greatness and call ourselves better than them. Idolatry.

Okay. Enough of the dark stuff.

Here’s what we need to do: I noted a few sentences back that we are incapable of doing anything without God’s help. This ties back into my reading in 1st John (the whole book, but here is an excerpt that I think bears quite well).

“This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. (1st John 1: 5-7)”

“Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. (1st John 2:3-6)”

If we turn our eyes not to our selves, not to our things, not to our world, not to the stars, but to Him and keep our gaze fixed upon Him we will know the true worship of the only true God. We will not stray to these other gods which beg and plead most attractively for our devotion. That’s the practical.

It’s the Bible, in its entirety that reveals what God is, and what idolatry is. The Commandments God has given us, the Ten as well as the Great Two, and everything in between, are laws that do not condemn Christians, but serve as the track upon which we walk from day to day. If we find ourselves feeling accused when we read the commandments of God, then we are probably due for a checkup.

We must pray to the real God for His help in avoiding worship of all things that are not Him. We must live in and through His Word to set up the walls that keep our devotion from falling off the track. We must fellowship with our brethren to ensure the track remains visible ahead of us and to keep each other on it.