The Ten Commandments
Are the Ten Commandments your guide for everything that you do?God loves you! He has given you The Ten Commandments as rules of life to obey every day and in every type of situation. If a temptation comes to you to disobey one of these commandments, you can resist. God has given you the strength to obey the commandments. The Ten Commandments and comments about each commandment are given below to help each commandment be practical for you in today's world - a guide for making decisions every day. May God richly bless you for obeying the Ten Commandments!
The Ten Commandments were summarized by Christ Jesus into two commandments in Mark chapter 12, verses 29 - 31. "...The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." (King James version of the Bible)
The Ten Commandments are found in the Bible - Exodus chapter 20, verses 3-17.The first four of the commandments are about loving and obeying God, the fifth is about loving and obeying both God and our parents and the sixth through the tenth commandments are about loving and respecting our neighbor. Jesus was very clear in indicating that everyone should be considered our neighbor - he did not hate anyone.
Do these Ten Commandments seem hard to obey? If so, that is just a temptation coming to our thought and we need to be strong and not yield to that temptation.
Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5, verse 19: "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
"From II John, verse 6: "And this is love, that we walk after his commandments.
"Is there some flexibility in the Ten Commandments? Relative to the Fourth Commandment, Jesus healed people on the sabbath and indicated it was okay to give our animals water on the sabbath (Matthew 12:10-13). However, relative to the Sixth Commandment, Jesus stated that not only should we not kill, but that it is even wrong to be angry with anyone (Matthew 5:21-24).
In the following quotes of the Ten Commandments, some commandments have been only partially quoted just giving the essence of the commandment. However, the Bible verses have been listed for each commandment for those wanting to read what the entire commandment says.
The First Commandment - Exodus 20, verse 3:
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
Is God always your first priority? Jesus said: "...seek ye first the kingdom of God..." (Matthew 6:33) Jesus also said: "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." (Matthew 6:24) Do you pray to God daily?Are you thankful to God every day for all the good he has provided to you? The Bible book of Psalms gives an abundance of lessons on the importance of praising and thanking God. Is God in control of your life, of your thinking, of your actions?If you let something material control you (alcohol, drugs, gambling, wrongful sex, pornography, money, etc.) then you are not obeying the First Commandment. The only way to make sure that evil does not control you is to not participate in anything but good.It says in I John 4:16 that "God is love". To yield to the temptation to hate would be disobedience to the First Commandment. Love always wins.Praise God for His abundant blessings! God's abundance is always available to us.
The Second Commandment - Exodus 20: verses 4-6:
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them:..."
Do you watch movies or visit Internet sites with improper images - images that cause the movies or web sites to be not suitable for children? Is money a god to you? God is our only source for the abundance we need.
The Third Commandment - Exodus 20: verse 7:
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain;..."
Do you always use God's name in a respectful way? Jesus taught us in the Lord's Prayer - "Hallowed be thy name". Do you think anything is impossible to God? God is always successful, as Jesus proved in the many healings documented in the Bible. Trust and understanding of God as the source of our health and well-being bring healings today also - through prayer.
The Fourth Commandment - Exodus 20: verses 8-11:
"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. ..."
Do you rest on the seventh day? God created everything in six days and rested on the seventh day. God wants us to follow his lead and do the same. This is one of the most clearly explained commandments as four verses comprise the commandment. Therefore it is clear that this commandment should be considered equal in importance to the other nine commandments.
The Fifth Commandment - Exodus 20, verse 12:
"Honour thy father and thy mother:..."
Does everything you do reflect God as your Father and Mother? Does everything you do glorify God? Does everything you do show respect to your parents, even if you are an adult? Everything Jesus did was for the glory of God - for God's honor. Should not we do this too?
The Sixth Commandment - Exodus 20: verse 13:
"Thou shalt not kill."
See Matthew chapter 5, verses 21 and 22 for Jesus' further definition of this commandment. Jesus said that it is even wrong to be angry with our neighbor. Jesus did not hate anybody and therefore neither should we. Love always wins - hatred never wins.
The Seventh Commandment - Exodus 20: verse 14:
"Thou shalt not commit adultery."
See Matthew chapter 5, verses 28 and 32 for Jesus' further definition of this commandment. Even letting in the thought to wish for someone we shouldn't have is wrong. See also Revelation chapter 2, verses 18-23. Fornication is one of the worst sins and has severe penalties unless it is totally forsaken and there is true repentance.
The Eighth Commandment - Exodus 20, verse 15:
"Thou shalt not steal"
Do you trust God to provide all your needs? Your only source is God. Therefore you do not need anything that belongs to someone else because He gives you all that you need. Do not steal the innocence away from children.
The Ninth Commandment - Exodus 20: verse 16:
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."
Are you seeing your neighbor as the image and likeness of God as stated in Genesis chapter 1, verses 26 and 27? Do you love your neighbor as your brother or sister? - God is the Father and Mother of everyone. Therefore we are all brothers and sisters. Jesus said in Matthew 5:44 - "Love your enemies..." and in Matthew 7:1 - "Judge not that ye be not judged." and in verse 3 of the same chapter: "...why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
The Tenth Commandment - Exodus 20: verse 17:
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house...nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."
Are we thankful to God for what we already have? Do we trust God as our source for everything we need? Then we should not want something that belongs to someone else nor try to duplicate or surpass what another has if we do not need it.
Have a wonderful day of obedience to the Ten Commandments!
2 comments:
Your post is good, and I like your point that Jesus summarizes the Ten Commandments into the two great commandments to love God and love our neighbor. The first four of the Ten Commandments teach us how to love God and the last six teach us how to love our neighbor.
I had a discussion about the seventh-day Sabbath in my blog, and I pointed out that there is a close connection between the fourth commandment to keep the Sabbath and the principle of faith. Faith means believing God and believing what He says in His word, the Bible, and Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the law (Matthew 23:23). Since faith is a matter of law, it seems logical that one or more of the Ten Commandments would require faith, and I believe this is true of the fourth commandment.
Many people can figure out and know even apart from God's word that it is wrong to murder, commit adultery, to steal, to bear false witness, to dishonor our parents, and many societies accept these as moral principles, even societies that do not have the Bible. But mankind cannot know about the weekly Sabbath apart from God's Word, and then only as we are willing to believe what God says. So it takes faith to believe what God says about the seventh day and to obey it. It also takes faith to trust God to provide when a man or woman risks their job by refusing to work on the Sabbath when their employer tells them to (Matthew 6:31-33).
The SABBATH is the day of the LORD made for man to remember the Creator and to worship Him.
It is the day the LORD rested, made holy and santified.
Read more in : http://www.sabbathtruth.com
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