A couple things brought me to think for a few about our mission here on earth. Brief forays into some popular evangelists and recent studies at church and home have brought me to this:

What is the chief and highest end of man?

Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

1 Corinthians 10:31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Above is the Westminster Larger Catechism’s first question and answer. Two reference verses are provided along with the answer.  If you’re interested in more about this, hit the link: Westminster Larger Catechism.

I’ve heard discussion that Catechisms and Confessions are way to Catholic or that they are Man Made or Legalistic junk. This is simply not true, though applications of these resources can certainly be Legalistic with little effort. The facts are that the Catechisms and Confessions are the same thing as if God gave us a written test that required us to put into our own words the Truths he has provided in the Bible. They are a distillation of doctrines that are found, widespread, throughout the Bible.

So, back to the subject at hand, I did a simple search at the ESV website (because that is a Bible translation I find to be as plain English as possible without going funky, cultural or relevant in the process) on glorify.

Click here: GLORIFY

The search found:

23 verses containing glorify.

And all those references were God and Jesus, just for extra credit.
Men glorified God because of what God did to them or for them. Men were commanded to glorify God in their bodies, in all that they did. Christ glorified the Father; the Father glorified Christ. Men glorify God because of his mercy, the Gospel, because of salvation, because of God’s deliverance, because God alone is worthy.

So my conclusion is…

Is God glorified through me? Is his glory evident in my life?

Am I seeking my own glory?

There are a number of evangelists and churches out there who teach about a God who is glorified by glorifying his people. These preach a message that, in essence, God is not glorified more than when his people are prospering, shiny, happy, self-sufficient, healthy, well-dressed, affluent, positive, sparkling.

Wait.  That last one was a reference to some vampire thing, I think. Did that slip in there somewhere? LoL. Side humor, I guess.

Back on topic.

Too many are churches and preachers who are glorified by the numbers they amass to themselves; who are communicating the disease of self-glorification through use of the Name of the Most High One. Too many of us believe that we bring glory to God by doing stuff that generally improves our personal situation and lives. This has two effects on the people who do not believe.

1. They are attracted to the show and treats offered by these self-help, family-improvement institutions and become well polished pieces of art, pock-marked by flaws that are glossed over with the diamond-hard shellac of superficial self-glorification. Look great, feel great, shot full of holes and dying. They come seeking and find what looks good on the outside and conceals horror on the inside

Matthew 23:27-28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

2. They are repulsed by the completely apparent stupidity of a faith group that claims to be God’s Children, who cannot defend their faith, falter under the first heavy storm in life, clearly fake the miracles, love people to death in hugs and money but do nothing for the soul. Some seekers seek the truth, and they are graced enough with sense to see the absolute inconsistency and corruption when they see it.

Matthew 23:27-28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

I, we, are still under this spell, I think; us post-modern/post-baby-boomer/generation-Y children. We instinctively seem to expect that God will provide, make a way, sugar-coat our lives.

B.S. and I mean it. We have it backwards. Look at the verses again. We’re not doing God a favor by pursuing Glorifying. We’re not getting paid for it.

Romans 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

We owe, not for payment for Services Rendered, but because it is our role as creation. God made us for that purpose.

A friend ran this through the media stream in my direction:

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22)

This stuff, right here, is not decoration to make us prettier (though it does just that), nor is it meat that makes us more substantial (though it also does just that). This stuff, the fruit of the Spirit, is what glorifies God, for it is the very characteristics that we should have as the righteous, properly conformed-to-his-original-design creatures that we should be.

Here’s the rub: We can’t do these things on our own and call it glorifying God. God installs these things within us. He takes our intellectual grasp of the fruits, which we vainly attempt to bring about on our own. He takes the understanding and brings it alive in us (re: Holy Spirit) so that we realize the real reason and method and application of the fruit. He makes it clean and pure fruit; sweetness and fragrance directed solely at Him.

No longer do we love others so that we can get their love in return. No more happiness based on those around us. No peace, patience, kindness, gentleness so we can get along well with others. No more goodness, faithfulness based on our own capacity and definition. There is freedom from legalistic and self-flagellating self-control.

Because we love others only because we see God’s love for them and how it glorifies him. Because we find happiness within our relationship with God, which transcends all worldly and bodily hardship. Because we find that peace, patience, kindness and gentleness only serve to Glorify God who alone has the right to vengeance and has demonstrated, through his own works, especially through Christ, that these are greater than fire and hell. Because goodness and faithfulness are found in God, through God and by God’s definition and point directly back to him. Because we constantly strive to limit ourselves from our sinful tendencies in order to glorify God more as the fruit of the Spirit fills the void left by our tidied minds and souls.

In summary: We must find a church, a preacher, a pastime all that focus not on the numbers or the miracles or the benefits of this pseudo-gospel; instead pointing entirely to God, calling us to holiness and the real Gospel which produces people devoted to glorifying the Most High.

As a pastor said, back in Cuba: “O Lord, that they see less of me and more of Thee.”

Short prayer, though I’m not so into praying over the intertubes.

Lord, I can’t seem to make this fruit thing work. I think I understand, through your Word, that I cannot, though I am sure to go back and try again with my own power. Lead me, through my failures, to turn to you for the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control that should be apparent in my life. Lead me, through my successes, to realize that all of it is of you, through me, but entirely of you, for your glory and nothing more. Make my poverty your glory, my destitute spirit rely upon you for all things because all things must glorify you. Keep me from me and turn me to thee.

Lead me to be

what my beloved most needs

what my children most learn

what my church most should have

what the world should most see

Lead me to be

a lover of you

a servant employed

with but one chief end

your fame my sole joy

I heard Jack Graham preach today on the radio.   He was talking about a lot of stuff but one thing stuck out was a little part of an analogy he was making that prompted me to think of this bit today.

I am most thankful, this Thanksgiving, for Christ’s paying the Price.

I think being a Christian has a little in common with being in one of those Most Expensive Stores out there.  You know, the kind where you don’t ask “how much is this?” before you buy it.

Graham was talking about how we must be prepared to give up everything we have.  For many of us, there’s a point in our walk where we really do get to face the decision to give everything to the Lord.  There is the point where we don’t even look at the receipt, just pick up the directions Christ gives us without considering the cost.

That’s where I am thankful, that he paid the price for our sins and that we get the freedom to serve him fully without reserve, without having to hold in reserve some part of our bank account for a rainy day.  No hoarding the food for some later month or hogging the gas “just in case.”

In Luke, Christ calls for the young rich guy to give it all up.

“One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

In Luke again, Zacchaeus really does give it all up.

“Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”

In Acts, Ananias and Sapphira didn’t get the gist of the directions.

This really is a promise as much as a commandment.  For us to surrender all is for us to be free from the bonds of all.

Thank you, Lord, for your great blessing of true liberty.  Thank you for lifting us from our worldly cages, those bonds that we have made for ourselves.

I thank you for your wonderful examples of how this commitment works.  Thank you for Steve Smith (and all his family, even), who has been living out your commandment to Not Count The Cost in reaching out with your Gospel to the world.

Thank you for all the pastors we’ve had in our many churches who continue on with their great ministries though shy the great funding and all the comforts that this world affords so many great leaders.

Thank you for the brave, tireless souls in our military who strive to serve you while serving the country, short on pay, often dirty, worn-down, hungry and scared.

Thank you for my little family, and that we can learn from your Word how we too can walk into the store of your blessings and guidance and not have to check the price-tags.

So today I think I’m going to talk about issues of the heart.  All of them, maybe.  One at a time.  Easy enough?  Here goes (I’ll start off complex and work my way progressively to more simple stuff):

A boss today essentially told me I needed to straighten up my act.  There’s a guy who works for me that has serious problems with authority.  He is a classic case of aggressive-passive (intentional wording).  Given a task, he will comply to the very minimum requirements of the task and grumble, back-bite, whine, blame and whatever-else-can-issue-from-the-mouth to the very maximum tolerance of his surroundings without actually crossing the line into blatant defiance.  And he cares not a whit for who hears him or observes it.  But this whole thing isn’t about him.  It’s about me.  The boss said I shouldn’t take that from him.  He said I really need to ratchet down on my little problem-child and basically tell him to put up or shut up.

The boss is right.  And I agreed with him.  As explanation (as opposed to excuse), I said I’d never really run into this type of character at work before and I wasn’t sure what buttons I could push to start getting through to him.  I’ve been in a lot (I think, A Lot) of odd situations with odd circumstances and a broad variety of characters, but honestly I don’t think I’ve ever been saddled with this type of total butt-pain.  So I’ve never really had to use the #9 boot calibration method, which is required in this situation.

The boss said “You wouldn’t let this kind of garbage go on at home with your kids, right?”  To which I obviously had to say, “Of course not.”  And that, of course, gave me pause and I really had to think.  Would I?

It’s two different situations.  I’ve spent my life with my kids and 13 years with my Wife.  I think I know how to diffuse, control, stop, bypass and deal with this sort of mess at home.  And I enjoy an authority and influence at home that I certainly do not possess at work.  So he’s right.  I wouldn’t let that go on in my own home.

At work, I’m in a different situation (keep with me here, it’ll make sense).  I’m experientially subordinate to the people who work for me.  They’ve been in the specific field we work in for a dedicated 3 years wherein I’ve been at it for less that 6 months.  They’re well acquainted with each other and the majority of the other workers in the environment.  I am not.  They have become set in their routine, methods and practice.  I am not part of that.  All of this combines to make a battlefield in which I am at serious disadvantage.  I don’t really know the lay of the land.  The enemy is thoroughly entrenched and they know the ranges, weather, terrain and maneuvers to get what they want done.

Bullshit.  If a guy consistently cusses you out behind your back and essentially tells you where you can stuff it, even if he ultimately complies with orders, he is an insubordinate failure.  And you have allowed him to fail.  Point one to God’s law.  As leader, I am responsible.

If someone persistently offends, practicing unacceptable practices, hurts others, leads the progression of others’ growing skills in the same negative behavior, then that person is a failure.  And you have allowed him to fail.  Point one to God’s law.  As leader, I am responsible.

It’s a matter of the heart.  I’ve a better grasp and performance rating in this leadership process at home.  While nowhere perfect at it, I strive as patiently and enduringly as I can to battle uprisings of bad attitudes, hurtful actions, fighting, backbiting and general monstrocity daily.  And I am as relentless as I can be.

I have not taken that integrity, ethic, standard to work with me.  Because I am afraid.  Because I’m dealing with people with whom I’m not intimate and with whom I’m not familiar.  So I err on the side of weakness, avoiding conflict with the problems because I want to be liked.  Because I want work to be good.  O do I want the work to be good.  But instead I hate my job.  I spend no little amount of time hating myself because of what I do (rather, don’t do) at work.

I have not kept my faith in my God in focus.  I faith myself to death at home.  Praying doggedly for my family in general and in specifics.  I push my kids’ buttons with as much strength as I can to get them as sin-free as I can, knowing each time that success is of God and not of me.

But I don’t do that at work.  I change faces at work.  And the face I have is not particularly admirable.

Simple bit:  It’s of the heart.  I’m not sick.  It is not the fault of the jerk at work.  It is not the environment at work.  It’s not the lack of fulfillment at work.  It’s not stress at home making my work wrong.  It’s me.  Me resisting the pulls of the Spirit to pursue God’s ways at work.  I have let the World work a weak spot of corrosion in my character.

It’s of the heart when you’re dealing with a liar.  It’s of the heart when you have a deep depression.  It’s of the heart when you’re battling someone who just. won’t. listen.  It’s of the heart when you can’t seem to give up this or that.

Yes, physical conditions, the environment, other people, the weather, body-odor can all contribute to aggravate a problem.  But the real root is just that, the heart.

We’ve been studying in Romans at church.  We read in Chapter 1 how things suck so bad that if we really grasped the depth of the problem, we’d probably all just curl up into little balls and wait for the meteor to obliterate us.

Romans 1:28,

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”

Simple.  31 flavors.  One for everyone.  Pick.  I have most of them in my toolbox.

Simplest:  Just in case anybody didn’t see their personal colors in 1:28, here’s the catch-all:

Romans 3:10 (and Psalm 14:1-3)

“As it is written:  ‘There is none righteous, no, not one;’”

We’re messed up.  It’s in the heart.  Can’t blame it on the rain.

Now how does it apply to the current theme here on my little blog?  Healing?  Look.  I am aware of the physical problems.  I know about medications now, and clinical diagnoses and everything.  I may not know everything, but I know way more than I really want to know now.  I’ve done research and see the light.  There’s no denying a physiological and environmental part, huge part, in all this trial.  But in the end, should all those things be cured…

It’s still in the heart.

And that’s what I’m praying for most of all.  That He’ll put us all in the way of fixing her heart.  He’ll do it, I’m sure.  I just want the joy of being a part of that miracle.  And I want it more than I want to fix the thing at work.

But, I think, as I’ve said and have been told a million times before:  If you can’t be trusted in the little things, how can you make it in the big time?

Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14-30.  Look it up.  I did.

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.

fter a recounting a generation of dusty travel, battles and all that comprised the wandering through the wilderness, Moses turned next to the vital sermons that reminded the Israelites who they were, who they lived for, and how they were to go about that identity and life. He starts off with a beautiful reminder of the legacy that is the Jews.

“Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal Peor; for the Lord your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor. But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you.”

This was Moses’ opening statement. Along the rest of these 14 verses, he reminds the people of the importance of the directions God has given them. He begins with the reasons for the commandments, the laws, which are coming up next.

What I really enjoyed reading here was Moses’ real sense of the people’s identity. Leaders absolutely must know their people, what their mission is and what the motivating factors in their activities must be. He had all this and made sure the Israelites got the full picture of who they were, where they were going and why. He reminded them of their failures and of their faithfulness all through the first 3 chapters of Deuteronomy.

He makes sure, before dispensing the law, that the people know why they must keep this law. Often we forget why we must keep God’s commandments. We forget why the commandments are in place. We often even forget how to accomplish the tasks inherent in the commandments. Moses knows this, and he revisits those important points.

“Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you got to possess. Therefore be careful to observe them for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’”

We must always realize that our image in Christ is the one that other people must see. The impact of not observing God’s commandments is not only self-destructive, it is absolutely destructive to the reputation of our Lord. See what Moses intends for people who are not of Israel here? We do want the world to know that our way, that way God has given us, is the wise and understanding way. There is no other way, but if we do not demonstrate the right ourselves, how is anyone who does not know God going to see it? This falls directly in the category of love in 1st John. If we love someone, do we not want them to know the truth?

If we love God, why in the world would we portray Him falsely to other people? Our public image, believe it or not, has been mandated by God to reflect Him. If we fail to do this, then we are rebelling against Him. If we do this, we are pleasing Him, and we are showing all the people around us what God is truly like. There’s no arguing on the day of reckoning. When we stand before God, we’ll be accounting for what we’ve done. I sure don’t want to be hanging my head in shame, unable to proclaim that I showed the Lord to my people.

“For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him?”

So we demonstrate the character of God first. Then we demonstrate the incredible relationship we have with God. We show our love for Him in being honest, obvious about His reputation, and upholding it in all we do. Then we also must show what that relationship is. Our life with our Lord is not one of futile prayers and idol worship (or idle, for that matter). Our life with God is one of real communication, one of real blessing and answered prayer. We follow Him and, unlike any other god in history, He leads us.

Any Christian who can’t honestly claim this wonderful relationship with our Lord is really in a mess. Here is a check for all of us. Are we trusting and following God? Are we seeking and finding His will? It’s the primary fact of our relationship with Him that we abide (live) in Him. To miss that vital truth in our lives is a sign of serious problems, an indication that we’re off trying to live on our own again. Some may not even realize they don’t truly understand what salvation and a right relationship with God is, and they need real help! Keep your eyes open for this in your own life and that of others. Seek the Father for yourself, pray for those who have gone astray from the real relationship that makes up Christianity.

“And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day?”

Moses also brings up the superiority of the Law. Of all the peoples the Jews encountered, none had the perfect guidance that was in the Law. The commands that Moses is about to lay down for the people (again) are not about simple ritual conduct or how to please God (thought both of those are inherent in the Law). The commands of God are for our own good, as well as for His. With the Bible in hand, we have the resource we need to do everything life requires of us. We have the means to relate to other men. We have the means to determine what is righteous and what is sinful. We have the means to communicate God to others. We have the means to determine what we need for salvation (ultra-critical!). We have all the relationship and lifestyle guidelines for our entire lives. We can be sure of our standing before the Lord, and we can steer clear of offending Him. There is nothing in the Law that is waste or misleading, and there is nothing in this world that is superior to it. Other people should know this of us, that we are guided by the only true road map for life.

We are to teach our progeny all this law. We are to teach them the Bible in its entirety. This is one powerful statement. Get this:

“Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren, especially concerning the day you stood before the Lord your God in Horeb, when the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to Me and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.’”

Teach it. Preach it. Why do we have church? Why is the idea of Bible study so well known in the church? Can’t we just have a basic understanding of God’s love and Christ’s sacrifice and the Spirit’s indwelling? We could cover just a few verses in the Bible and have a great, Godly life, right?

Moses doesn’t think so. He wants the people to never forget any of it. We need to apply this to our own lives. The Bible, in its entirety is our life and blood as Christians, for it is the main source of God’s revelation. We know Him when we know His Word. Selective hearing doesn’t work for kids or adults, and so selective reading of the Bible isn’t going to serve us either. Knowing God, and sharing that knowledge in its entirety to our generation and those to follow is paramount for us to preserve the image of Him and our relationship with Him.

Moses is providing his people with the directions they need to survive in the Promised Land. Sure, building cities and farming up food and having military prowess is going to be important, but building faith, farming wisdom and having the prowess of discernment are far more lasting and valuable qualities. The Israelites faith is going to be tested over and over again in this new land, and Moses doesn’t want them to miss the point.

We need to do the same. We need to realize that our relationship with our Lord is of the first order of importance. Where we are going, what we are doing, our sustenance and our goals are all derived from Him. They’re not happenstance, ever. God puts before us what He wants us to consume and our only means of dealing with this fact is to know His Law, His ways and to live within them. This is abiding in Christ.