10 COMMANDMENTS OR 2?

 

Jesus said, "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them."

Mat 22:37-40

Critics love to poke holes at the congruency of the Bible, saying that it contradicts itself.  Here is a prime example of the Bible saying one thing in the Old Testament and then something else in the New Testament!

To better understand this, it helps to go back to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy...  too much?  Indeed, there’s a lot in there.  But this was ‘The Law’.  It contains the 613 mitzvah (rules/commandments/law/words) that every Jewish child needs to learn when they become sons and daughters of the law (bar/bat mitzvah) and take on the responsibility of following GOD.  The 10 Mitzvah in Exodus 20 are known as The Ten Words.

As a Christian, I was only taught ten commandments at Sunday School, not six hundred!  And right there, under the guise of sweet innocence, our foundational teachings in the Christian faith skew our perceptions and understanding of our relationship with GOD.  Instead of us viewing these commandments (10 or 613, doesn’t actually matter) as a checklist to chastity, we should see them as a profile for what life should look like when we love our GOD with all our heart, mind and soul.  

However, instead, we draw pictures and learn the 10 off by-heart, believing that we are now better, somehow closer to GOD.  The flip side is that we feel terrible and worthless when we can't keep them.  The problem:  we will never be able to keep them all.  The solution: Jesus Christ - Grace.

GOD wants to know YOU

  

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

John 14:9

Vicar.  A word you know; a word that I know.  But, do we actually know what it means?  Many may answer that vicar means priest or minister - as in the leader of a church.  The sobering truth is that it actually means something quite different...

Priest is fairly close, but in the sense of "one who stands between".  Vicar is a shortened version of the word vicarious, which means "serving instead of someone or something else".  It can be argued that vicar is a good word since we often experience GOD through our church leaders, we experience worship and teaching through their gifting.

Be refreshed... in abundance!

“Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.”

Deuteronomy 32:2

There is an amazing gentleness about GOD’s love and His teaching, yet it penetrates marrow and bone and cuts through to the soul.  Rain can be gentle and refreshing, (see Psalm 68:9), but it can also completely transform and reshape a landscape. We often see the devastation of rain but if it falls in the right place, at the right time, forests and lush gardens sprout out.  Deserts of baron sandscapes become havens of life, newness and growth.  Wherever GOD’s Spirit is, things will be fresh and full of life!

People are attracted to life and newness, there is a uniqueness about growth that draws people in.  GOD offers this to us in abundance, not in limited supply, but more that we could ever ask or imagine!  If we want to become people who encourage, who stop, listen and love, then GOD’s word urges us to allow His teaching and discipline to grow, transform and empower us!

We need to desire to grow into the people that GOD has created us to be - images of Him.  As diverse and different as we all are, together, we create a glimmer of the diversity and depth of GOD.  It's from this beautiful picture that we begin to take on the image of GOD, and start to experience His abundance.  His Word encourages us to become part of the palette and add our colour to the canvas of life.

It's important to remember that bit I mentioned earlier about the right time and right place.  Often, we pray for GOD's abundance in an area and then struggle to accept why it might take time to manifest in our lives.  GOD knows that if we know too much, too soon, it can destroy us.  We should never rush GOD or His countenance, we should relish in what we have right now, because this is the abundance that He knows will create growth in our lives and in our relationship with Him.  We are like tender plants and He is the gardener, He knows how much sun we need, He knows how much shade.  He also knows how much watering will drown us, and how much will allow us to grow to our potential.

The heaven’s declare His righteousness – let your lifescape be a garden of hope and growth!