Monthly Archives: April 2023

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – DON’T SABOTAGE UNITY

Christian Life,

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – DON’T SABOTAGE UNITY

“You shall not commit adultery.”  Exodus 20:14

This sounds simple on the surface, but it has deep implications. The roots of this command come from who God is.  Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one” was the Hebrew confession of faith. The Hebrew word for unity is ECHAD, unity in diversity, not as a single unit but in a team sense. God is ECHAD, and we are made in His image – ECHAD.  In the church, we are many members but one body. When one member suffers, we all suffer because we are one.

The world is ECHAD – everything functions as a unit e.g., the ocean currents affect the climate of the earth. God’s creation reflects His image. Since God is one and we are created in His image, we find our fulfilment in pursing wholeness -ECHAD, and if we do anything that sabotages ECHAD we bring destruction on ourselves and cause our world to unravel around us.

Since God is ECHAD, He keeps everything together in ECHAD. The force that holds the universe together is called ECHAD – oneness.  Since we are part of the universe and are therefore, part of ECHAD, when we sabotage unity, we are a part of what is tearing the universe apart. Adultery leaves a person disjointed and fractured.  Adultery is not only the act of illicit sex. Anything we do that sabotages ECHAD is adultery. Division in the church is the opposite of ECHAD. Whatever is in the environment that destroys unity is adultery, for example, gossip, division, quarrelling or self-seeking. Whatever arises out of selfishness destroys unity and is classified as adultery.

God indicted His people for spiritual adultery because they worshipped idols, behind which were demonic spirits that tore their lives apart and destroyed their EHAD-ness with each other and with God. Idolatry affected their behaviour towards one another. Parents burnt their children alive as sacrifices to these gods, destroying families, and disrupting unity. Think of what alcohol, drugs, gambling, and promiscuity does to families. These are all aspects of the broad term, “adultery”.  Physical union outside of marriage is the seal of a union already broken.

The deepest cry in our hearts is to be connected in oneness because God is one. A hypocrite is one who divided inside of himself. Genesis 2:24 – marriage is not just companionship for life, a cure for loneliness, or a sexual partner.  At its core is a picture of what God is like. Sexuality is much bigger than just a physical act. To a Hebrew person, having sex meant that two people were creating a union which constituted marriage.

To rape a woman meant you were married to her.  There is no sex in heaven because we won’t need the picture anymore. We have a strong sex drive because it expresses our need to be connected to another person to be one.  Marriage is to reflect God’s nature; therefore, marriage must be always protected to keep our lives and families intact.

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – DON’T WITHHOLD WHAT YOU CAN USE TO BLESS OTHERS

Christian Life

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – DON’T WITHHOLD WHAT YOU CAN USE TO BLESS OTHERS

“You shall not steal.” Exodus 20:15

On the surface this was a simple command. “Don’t take things that do not belong to you” is a basic idea found in most cultures.  Even a child knows that it is wrong to take someone else’s property. However, this commandment has a much deeper significance than that.

First, we must define what is ours. There are two ways to obtain things: We earn money and buy them, or somebody gives them to us. However we obtain our possessions, we claim that they are ours.

But what does God have to say about our possessions?  Deut 8:10:17, 18. “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth and so confirms His covenant, which He swore to your forefathers, as it is today’. Remember that whatever you get by increase or multiplication comes from God.  Don’t forget where you came from, and what He has done for you, so that you don’t become proud and claim that you are responsible for your wealth. All our possessions are gifts from God. God must always be in the centre so that we use our possessions to honour Him.

God tells us how to honour Him. If we ignore His instruction, we endanger ourselves by taking up the attitude that “I earned it, therefore it is mine.” Stealing is wrong because it perverts God’s way of our getting things. If we claim ownership because we earned it, it takes God out of the centre.

To a Hebrew person, stealing is much more than taking something that isn’t ours; it is also withholding what we can bless someone else with because God is the centre of our lives.  He wants us to be generous with what we have because He is generous.

The Apostle John picks up on this principle. “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in Him?” 1 John 4:17. If there is someone in need and you can meet it, do it. This applies, not only to money but to life on every level.  God is trying to weed out of us the attitude that we have the right to hoard. 

God’s idea in this commandment is not only to protect property but to protect property so that we have something with which to bless others who have a need. God hates a huge gap between the rich and the poor. When the gap between those who have and those who have not gets too big, a nation implodes on itself. God wanted to protect the nation’s existence by creating a culture where those who have share with those who have not to maintain equality, not to foster laziness. By promoting generosity, the nation would continue to fulfil its destiny.

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – DON’T ELEVATE YOURSELF

Christian Life

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – DON’T ELEVATE YOURSELF

“You shall not murder…” Exodus 20:13

On the surface this commandment simply says, “Don’t kill people.” This must have been a relief for the Israelites because, for the duration of their slavery in Egypt they could be killed, but God was telling them that they were to respect every person as made in the image of God.

There are two Hebrew words for “kill”; to take someone’s life on purpose and to take someone’s life by accident. To kill someone on purpose, you would have to develop a belief that you are above that person.  According to statistics, 1% of all murders are coldblooded; 99% of people are killed because of anger. Anger is a secondary and dangerous emotion.  Drunkenness and anger are the two main causes of murder.

When we are angry, the blood leaves our brain to prepare us for a fight, leaving most people in a state of being mentally depleted. Is it possible to make a good decision when you are angry?

What makes us journey from anger to contempt? When we allow ourselves to become angry and don’t resolve it, we begin to travel a road that ends in murder, first verbal and ultimately physical. The first step, called “the cold shoulder”, implies that our world would be better without you. This is how Jesus defined the start of the way that ends in murder (Matthew 5:20-22). It does not begin with the intent to take another person’s life. It begins with stripping the other person of their dignity, treating them with contempt. This type of contempt is all around us, sarcasm, bad humour, making fun of people, the cold shoulder. This commandment is about putting other people first.

In Matthew 5:27 Jesus deals with this. “Anger” here is a sustained feeling of anger. The word “raca” replicates the sound of someone who is about to spit, implying contempt. There is a progression in Jesus’ teaching.  Anger brings judgement; contempt will land you in the high court, but to say, “You fool” puts you in danger of the fires of hell. Jesus said, to call someone “Fool” is tantamount to murder in our heart by writing another person off as a morally debased person.

If something is true in your imagination, it might as well as be true. Once you want someone dead, or believe they are worthless or degrade them by slander or sarcasm, or make fun of them, you are guilty of murder.

This was a serious issue with Jesus’ religious opponents because they dismissed Him as Beelzebub, a Samaritan and demon-possessed, all of which were their way of showing contempt, the first step towards killing Him.

Matthew 5:23 – Jesus said, “Make it right before you offer your gift. You take the initiative if there is a problem between you and someone else.” We cannot create a culture that shows the world what God is like if we do not honour the image of God in every person. The key issue is that every person, whoever they are and however bad they are, matters.

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – PAY IT FORWARD

Christian life,

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – PAY IT FORWARD

“Honour your father and mother…” Ex 20:12

This is the first commandment with a promise, long life in the land God had given them. The promise in Ex 20:12 is tied to the length of time they would be allowed to live in the Promised Land.  God was saying to the people, “If you break the cycle of ungodly behaviour by honouring your parents, I guarantee that your life will be long in the Promised Land.” Godliness or ungodliness is multiplied in a family as the numbers increase. By the fifth generation there is a group of people big enough to affect a society. God is saying, “Stop the rot in your family before you lose the land.”

Honour has more to do with the way our children act than how our parents acted. Honour has less to do with what we say to our parents than what we say to our children.  To honour our parents is to move godliness forward into the next generation.  We choose to change what was ungodly in our parent’s behaviour so that our children don’t have to deal with what we had to deal with in our childhood.  Pay it forward. To honour our parents is to break the cycle of ungodliness for the next generation.

Some of us have a problem with this because our experience of parents has been painful and the thought of honouring them causes us a real problem. However:…

Firstly, to honour is not to ignore wrongs and pretend that things didn’t happen. Secondly, it is not to pretend that what was wrong was right. If we do, we are in danger of starting a new “normal”.  To do that is to accept that the way they treated us is “normal” which we perpetuate in our children. “That’s who we are and that’s what we do”, which is continuing something that is ungodly. Thirdly, to honour erring parents is to set boundaries in our behaviour that create a safe environment for us and our offspring.

How do we deal with our parents’ wrongs? We must start with gratitude to them for giving us life.  Whatever God’s plan, He could not do it without them. Any decision made while we are still alive, can be repented of and changed.

Our parents are not unique. They are part of a fallen world and so are we, but we must decide not to continue their wrongs in the next generation. We must not stand in judgement but let God take the vengeance for wrongs. He is a better judge than we are.

We must realise that they were wounded too. We can either perpetuate their wounds by punishing others because of what they did to us, or we can forgive them and let the offenses go. We can become what we hate, or we can break the pattern.  We can honour our parents by building a healthy future for our children or we can continue our bitterness in our children.

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – TAKE A DAY OFF

Christian Life,

GOD’S MARRIAGE COVENANT – TAKE A DAY OFF

“Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy…” Ex 20:8

The fourth commandment refers us back to creation. God established a rhythm ratio of 6:1, six days of work to one day of rest. The Sabbath is to be a day that is unlike the other six days. We tend to evaluate life by how much we accomplish rather than who we are. The Israelites had to make a daily quota of bricks for their slavedrivers and that was the measure of their worth to them.  If we make our life about” making bricks” it will never be enough. God wanted them to know that they were just as valuable to Him when they were not accomplishing anything as when they were. He not only freed them from their slavedrivers; He had to free them from the notion that they were only valuable if they were making bricks. He instituted the commandment that for one day in seven they should do something different.

God created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh. Is God still Creator when He is resting and not creating? Of course, God is still Creator whether He is creating or not. We are still His sons and daughters whether we are producing anything or not. But we must settle this question in our own minds. Am I who I am regardless of what I am producing or is my value determined by what I accomplish?

The Jewish religious leaders quarrelled with Jesus because their interpretation of the Sabbath conflicted with His. They accused Him of being a law breaker when He persisted in healing on the Sabbath. Their laws forbade them to do anything on the Sabbath that they classified as “work”. To them, healing was “work” and therefore fell into the category of “forbidden”. Unfortunately, they missed the whole point of the Sabbath.

The Sabbath was a gift of God’s mercy, freeing them from unending toil so that they could rest, recover their strength, and restore broken relationships to prepare them for a new week. Without a break in their week, they would soon wear out and never have an opportunity to find themselves. It would be easy for them to equate their value and those of their fellow Israelites with work.

Jesus modelled God’s mercy by freeing people from their afflictions on the Sabbath. He defended His actions by declaring that He was only doing what He saw the Father doing and the Father was always working regardless of the Sabbath because His work was showing mercy.

The Sabbath is God’s gift to us, providing us with an opportunity to rest, to understand our worth to God regardless of our achievements or lack of achievements and to help others in need because God’s mercy reaches out to us all the time. Sabbath was not given to bind us to legalistic rules to benefit God as though He needed us to impress Him. Instead, it is God’s loving gift to us.

Sabbath is also a prophetic promise of God’s eternal rest, fulfilled in Jesus. No longer do we need to labour in vain to find acceptance with God. We rest in the finished work of Jesus for full salvation.