If we want to have that covenant relationship with Him as
our God and us as His people, it is only right that we keep our vows of willing
obedience unto Him. Remember that these
vows are meant to secure faithfulness between the members who are willingly
entering into this covenant relationship with one another. God is always faithful and keeps His promises
to us. It is we who are forever straying
from Him; thereby, disrupting our fellowship with Him at the least, or breaking
our relationship with Him entirely at the worst. We are the ones who are fickle in this love
relationship, not Him.
His commandments are not options or casual suggestions, but
rather imperatives. They are not meant
to establish His power over us, for His power over all creation was established
from before the beginning of time. It is
He who has made us, and not we ourselves.
To aid our understanding that these commandments are meant to be for our
good and not an attempt on God’s part to set Himself up as some sort of
reigning tyrant, let us consider a simple act of an earthly father as he cares
for his child. An earthly daddy will command his child: “Thou shalt not play with
fire.” Is the Daddy trying to be a
tyrant, or is he only doing his best to protect and keep the child from being
harmed? The child can use his free will
to either obey or disobey his daddy’s command.
He can choose to trust in the wisdom of his daddy, obey and enjoy the
blessing of safety. On the other hand,
he can choose to doubt his father’s wisdom, disobey, thinking himself wiser
than his dad, play with fire and suffer the consequences of being hurt, or
possibly even killed.
Considering all things from
that point of view, shouldn’t we conclude that disobeying God, our heavenly
Father, is all the more likely to bring harm upon ourselves through our own
rebelliousness, and through no fault of His?
God always gives us a choice to trust in Him, receive His blessing, or
trust in our own wisdom over His, disobey and suffer the consequences. This is the principle which demonstrates
plainly that, as a result of our own choices in life, we will either receive
blessings or curses. God is completely
truthful and honest with us; He’s not wishy-washy, nor does He play
around. Unlike mankind, we can always
take Him at His word.
God beckons to the heart of every man that we might turn
our hearts towards Him in faith. He has loved us first. He wants us to know Him, not just with head
knowledge, but with the whole heart, in order to establish a covenant
relationship, one that is to be stronger than any other bond on earth or in
Heaven. A covenant is far more than a contract;
it is to be an eternal agreement made between God and each individual who will
choose to believe in Him. This covenant
relationship is to carve out and separate from the world, a peculiar people
that will agree to obey Him above all else, not allowing anyone or anything to
come between them. He forewarns us that
not all will believe on Him, for some will so harden their heart towards God
that they will no longer have ears with which to hear the voice of the Holy
Spirit calling out to them. That
condition is known as having a stony heart, one that is no longer able to be
pierced by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of the living God. It is
the Holy Spirit that gives us a new heart and renews a right spirit within us,
one that will seek the Lord, to know, love, and worship Him as Savior and Lord.
For the longest time, I could not understand why the word
of God referred to those who go astray from God as prostitutes and
whoremongers? Furthermore, if He had
already said that we must love Him with the whole heart, why was it necessary
to add that we are to have no other gods before Him? In an effort to gain a better understanding,
I looked upon the marriage relationship between a man and a woman. Being the closest relationship that exists on
earth, perhaps it may provide partial insight into the relationship between the
groom, Jesus, and the church, His bride.
As a husband guards over his wife to care for and protect her, so does
God watch over His bride, the body of believers, with an even more jealous or
vigilant zeal. This personal relationship and bond of love is meant to be so
strong that nothing in heaven or on earth could separate or sever it.
Perhaps the present day statistics of marriages ending in
divorce, and couples living together outside of the bonds of matrimony, is a
contributing factor to our lack of understanding as to why God requires us to
believe in and worship Him alone and no other.
I am not hereby trying to condemn anyone who has had the misfortune of
having been divorced. Sin is sin, but
there is also forgiveness of sin through faith in Christ when we repent, turn
from it, and seek to practice it no more.
However, what I am saying is that if we do not view our marriage vows as
a covenant before the Lord, but merely as a civil contract that can be broken
easily, forsaken, and dissolved at the drop of a hat, then perhaps having
multiple partners and relationships makes infidelity appear to be the norm
rather than the exception. If we can
view a marriage as something to be easily discarded simply because it no longer
“makes me happy,” then maybe that’s one reason we find it easy to discard God
simply because He too seemed to fail to grant us everything that was on our
list of “things that God must do to make ME happy.” In our arrogance, we have busily made
ourselves the center of all things rather than making God the center of
everything in our lives. No wonder, in
our own state of confusion and egotistical self centeredness, we have found it
easier and easier to redefine sin as good.
In this present man centered
secular society, we think we have the right to usurp God’s authority and
redefine right and wrong to suit ourselves.
Thus, we simply redefine sexual immorality, whether it is of the
homosexual or heterosexual nature, there is no difference; sin is sin. Cohabitating
outside the bonds of marriage is no less sinful than homosexual behavior
is. Yet, today, in order to hide the
fact that such behavior is sin and unpleasing to God, we merely redefine both
as alternative and acceptable lifestyle.
All of a sudden, we think that we have the right to disagree with
Him. How ridiculous of us! We are in the process of redefining marriage
as being between any two persons regardless of gender, instead of between a man
and a woman as it is described biblically.
How long do you think it will take before it becomes acceptable to
include any number of people, as long as they are consenting adults? What makes us think it will stop there? There are those who are already at work
trying to change the law so that your twelve year old daughter may be
considered as a “consenting adult.” The
family unit is quickly being destroyed, enabling mankind to redefine it as
anything you want it to be, instead of what God has designed and meant it to
be. We have discarded the acknowledgment
that God alone has the rightful authority to determine what sin is; instead we
have given man that authority. Man is
totally focused on being tolerant of everyone and everything, except God. Through our pursuit to forget God and His
ways, we think it is a good idea to rid the world of any such idea of sin. Man is diligently at work forsaking the very
existence of moral absolutes for right and wrong; instead all things become
relative and subject to change at the drop of a hat. Ah yes, man’s ways are so dependable and
trustworthy, right? NOT! Oh but we can say one good thing about
ourselves; we are well on our way to becoming totally inclusive and
tolerant! That one pesky thing, God and
His ways, that have always hindered man from having the freedom to make up his
own rules to suit himself, is quickly being removed. Out of sight, out of mind! Surely we will have very soon created a great
utopia for ourselves. If that were true,
why are evil and violence on the increase?
Or have we become so blind that now evil appears to be good? Isn’t that found in the scriptures? “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good
evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for
sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isa. 5: 20)
Tolerance becomes the last standing “virtue” in every
decadent society. Once again, we must
remind ourselves that tolerance redefined becomes unique in that it eventually
erodes into tolerance, or acceptance, of everything except God and His ways. Therein is revealed to us the Big Lie! “Because that, when they knew God, they
glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their
imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became
fools. And changed the glory of the
uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and
fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of
their hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie,
and worshipped
and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever.
Amen” (Romans 1: 21 - 25)
Are we not exchanging the purity of God’s truth for the lies of Satan, in order
to escape the responsibility of acknowledging our sin before the Lord? Is this not all a part of the great delusion
that is straight from Satan, the Father of all lies?
From the beginning of time, mankind has forever acted as
though God doesn’t say what He means, or mean what He says. I don’t think God plays head or word games as
man does. What part of no other gods is ambiguous or hard to
understand? Doesn’t ‘no other’ mean exactly that: zero,
none, zilch, and absolutely no other? In our foolishness, we try to turn the word
of God into some kind of a semantics game; whereby we can twist and turn His
words into meaning something that is more convenient and pleasing to our
individual way of thinking to justify our own thoughts or ways, even when they
are contrary to the word of God.
Nevertheless, I reiterate; Sin is
what God says it is, and not
what man says it is, or is not. Like it
or not, whether we believe it or not, God is still in control. “For what if some did not believe? Shall their
unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is
written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome
when thou art judged.” (Romans 3: 3, 4)
Christians today are no different than the Israelites, whom
God first called them out to be a special and peculiar people unto Him. They professed to believe in Yahweh, and yet
they thought they could treat Him as if He was only one of many gods. They thought they could profess Him with
their lips to be their God, and yet go out and fool around a bit with the
foreign gods of the nations around them.
As it was then, so it is now, for Christians profess to believe in God
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but think God is going to turn a blind eye to
their adulterous unfaithful hearts as they go out and indulge in the practice
of a bit of Buddhism meditating, a bit of witchcraft, paganism, New Age
channeling, and even throwing in a bit of necromancy; involving themselves with
false gods and idols (such as materialism and career idols); thereby dabbling
in Satan’s playground. Doesn’t the word
of God tell us not to give place to
the devil, and not to give any
appearance of evil, and to resist the devil? Doesn’t it also tell us that the fear of the
Lord is to hate evil? (I Thess.
5:22; James 4: 7; Prov. 8: 13) Why are
we acting like the spoiled child who refuses to listen to his Daddy, playing
with fire, and then is consumed by the fire?
Will we never learn that His ways are only meant to be for our good?
In our own deceitful hearts, we connive to
deceive by convincing ourselves that we aren’t straying from God, as we seek to
incorporate such things as seeking “positive energy”, or sending out “positive
thoughts,” reading horoscopes, Buddhist style chanting of prayers, etc., as if
the word of God was somehow lacking in power, and therefore must be added to in
order to make up for it’s insufficiency?
By such sinful practices, we contaminate and weaken the power of God in
our lives, turning ourselves into hypocrites, having the name of God on our
lips, but removing Him far from our hearts.
We have become so comfortable with witchcraft that we don’t even
recognize that we are spoon feeding it to ourselves and our children through
such conduits as the Harry Potter novels.
Open the door to our hearts to such tools of the devil, no matter how
innocent they may appear to be as just little tales of fantasy, and before you
know it, our conscience will have become so seared that discernment between
good and evil will become clouded and unrecognizable. Play around with false gods and idols and you
play with fire, the kind that could very well lead you and me into the fire of
eternal Hell.
I don’t claim to be self righteous, sinless, or holier than
thou, for I have fallen into the pit of sin just like every other human being,
with the exception of Jesus, the only sinless man, being all God in the form of
man. I know without a shadow of a doubt
that I too am a sinner, saved by the grace of God. There is no sin that any of us could ever
say, “Oh I would never do that!” Temptation
is always present, but it can be overcome, as the word tells us, “not by might,
not by power, but by My Spirit saith the Lord.”
The Lord warns us time and time again, “BE NOT DECEIVED!” Repent,
turn away from evil, have nothing to do with the wickedness of false gods and
their evil ways, lest you find yourself ensnared and trapped by them. The devil is nothing to be played around
with; he can take many forms and is always seeking whom he may devour. His ways may appear as a path to light,
strength, enlightenment, and even improvement and healing for a temporary
period of time. But he can not provide
anything good or permanent, for he only offers a temporary fix, not a cure; a
deceiving counterfeit substitute that eventually turns against you to destroy
you. Remember, Satan is the father of
all lies. Open your mind and heart to
another “power” other than the power of God, and you open your mind and heart
to every demon and false god that prevails in the powers and principalities of
the darkness of this world.
It never ceases to amaze me just how arrogant and prideful man
is in our natural state when we refuse to recognize that the Bible is God’s
map, or book of directions, by which we are to live out our lives. So few of us truly seek the guidance of the
Holy Spirit, who is meant to be our guide and source for strength to help us
live out our lives as God has planned, that all may go well for us. Some search the scriptures at times, not to
seek God’s truth, but in an attempt to pervert and twist it to fit their own
vain imaginations. Unfortunately, many will
never truly turn to Christ to know, serve, obey, love, and receive Him as Lord
and Savior. As a result, many will
gradually become more and more like Satan, who knows the word backwards and
forwards, but who will never worship the Creator God and giver of life itself.
I can not exclude myself from the band of believers that are
always falling short of the mark. At
times, I can only imagine how God must be shaking His head and thinking, “There
she goes again. I’ve given her directions
how to stay on the right path. I even
sent her the Holy Spirit to make the written word come alive in her heart, to
live in her to be her special guide. Yet,
she keeps on following one detour sign after another. How often is she going to continue to go down
one wrong path after another? She knows
she’s going to suffer the consequences of her own foolish choices.” I think of a GPS in a car and its
continual warnings telling the driver to “recalculate,” or turn around and go
back. It seems I constantly have to go
around and around the same route, because I fail to listen and follow His
directions. Every time I’ve stepped
outside of the protection of His Word and guidance of His Holy Spirit, either
through the idiocy of following my own desires, as if I knew better than Him,
or due to ignorance, because I didn’t first seek His wisdom and knowledge. I’ve been caught time and time again in a trap
that spirals downward into chaos and confusion, instead of “moving on up” to
run the race of life according to His best plan which is always for my best. Thank God for His mercy and grace, patience,
and unconditional love! He never gives
up on you or me. Dear Lord, help us not
to give up on you due to doubt and unbelief.
“…Lord, I do believe; help thou mine unbelief.” (Mark 9: 24 )
Why is obedience, to the One who has loved us first, often perceived
as a hindrance to our liberty? When, in
truth, it is really the very key to our liberty and freedom from the law of sin
and death. “Now the Lord is that Spirit:
and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (II Cor. 3: 17) Why is it that we want to hold fast to our
own will, instead of learning to submit our will to His, which is far superior
to ours? Thank God, He keeps a vigilant
watch over us with a steadfastness that never ceases; He never slumbers or
sleeps, and we are carved in the palms of His hands. “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened,
that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy (dull), that it cannot hear.” (Isa.
59:1)
The following is inserted from a previous writing. As we revisit it, may our hearts be that much
more impressed with its importance in understanding what, or rather WHO makes Christianity unique and like
no other religion:
All religions have teachers, preachers, prophets, and
philosophies. Christianity, which includes Messianic Jews, is singled out as
different, having no other religion equal to it, because it is the only religion
that provides the Savior, Jesus
Christ. Though He taught, preached, and
prophesied magnificently, He came not for that purpose. Instead, He came to die on the cross to pay
our sin debt, and be the Savior of all who would choose to believe in Him. If
we are truly born again believers, we no longer belong to ourselves, for we
were bought and paid for by His atoning blood.
Therefore, our obedience unto Him is a reasonable sacrifice unto Him for
all He has provided for us, which includes the benefit that no other can give –
forgiveness of sins and eternal life with Him in Heaven. No other religion promises forgiveness or
salvation but only a “maybe,” not a promise, and even that is based upon a
faith in our own good deeds.
If all you want is good teaching, preaching or philosophy,
you can find that in any other religion, and maybe through a few of those self
help books. However, if you are seeking
forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God the Father, salvation, and eternal
life in Heaven, that can only be found through a personal relationship and
faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
There is no forgiveness of sins except through faith in the shed blood
of Jesus Christ on the cross, and belief in His resurrection. Without His resurrection, our faith is all in
vain. Yes, Christianity can have no
equal, for there is no other Savior than Jesus Christ. All other religions are in vain for they
offer only teachings and dependence upon good works which are insufficient to
enable mankind to reach God’s standards for perfection. All men fall short of the mark; no man can
lead a sinless life to earn his own
salvation. Therein lies the key; we are
saved by the grace of God through faith, and even that is a gift of God, lest
any man should think he has a right to boast concerning himself. Jesus himself has informed us that there is
no other philosophy or religion that is equal to or acceptable in the eyes of
God. Exclusiveness (“having no other
gods before me”), not inclusiveness, is commanded, not suggested, by the God of
the Bible; His offer to trust in Him is His selected
choice, for it is open to whosoever will believe in Him. That is how one
becomes included in the gift of His Spirit.
Matt. 22: 37
“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord
Thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”
Deut. 5: 7
“Thou shalt have none other
gods before me.”
John 14: 6
“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life;
no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” [It does not say ‘a way,’ ‘a truth,’
or ‘a life’. He made it clear, with no
ambiguousness, that He is not one of
many paths or options; He is the only choice,
path, or option.]
Acts 4: 12
“Neither is there salvation
in any other: for there is none other
name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
I Cor. 15: 14
“and if Christ be not risen,
then is our preaching vain, and our faith is also vain.”
I Cor. 1: 17 -
19
“For Christ sent me [Paul]
not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words; lest the
cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
For the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish [die in their sins, not born again of the spirit]
foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it
is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent.”
To the finite mind, especially of the person who has not
been born again, it may appear that the word of God is nothing more than a
bunch of legalistic rules written by men.
And so it may very well remain, that and nothing else for the person who
attempts to follow all the customs and traditions of man in the “practicing” of
a religion, as if salvation was gained through the letter of the law, instead
of through faith by the grace of God. For some people, even for many who go to church
every time the door is open, they may know a lot about Jesus, but that is
the extent of their connection with Him.
Some how, they have been deceived into thinking, like the song says, “Is
that all there is?” If legalism is all
there is in a relationship with Jesus, one may never move from the point of
knowing about Jesus to the point of knowing and receiving Him personally. God forbid!
Even when limited to just the human level of understanding,
the key element to any lasting and caring relationship is that word “love.”
However, that word has been so lightly taken and misused, that it clouds our
ability to understand the magnitude of God’s great love towards all of
mankind. We throw the word love around
so flippantly that it has almost lost its true meaning. We say things like: I just love spaghetti; don’t you just love my
new dress; I love my little dog. People
have come so far from understanding what true love is; they confuse passion and
lust, mistakenly believing them to be love.
No wonder so many marriages fall apart in such a state of confusion,
leading to total disillusionment. Many
couples get married, discovering too late, that true love never even existed in
their relationship; they were deceived and accepted a poor substitute in place
of the real thing.
My husband and I started dating when he was 15, and I was
16. We dated for seven years, off and on
even through the years when I went away to college, before getting
married. He had told me that he loved
me, but I had never expressed that back to him.
Taking such a step for me would be a very serious thing. I don’t mean to suggest that it was not just
as serious to him. However, the first
time I did tell him that I loved him is one of those moments that I can see in
my mind just as vividly as if it were a video that could be viewed time and time again. We returned from a date, and stood just
inside the door of my parents’ home. As we stood together in an embrace with
our arms around one another, he told me once again that he loved me. I knew I loved him too, and finally responded
as I whispered in his ear, “I love you too.”
I put my arms around his neck, and held on as tight as I could. I was inwardly convinced that just speaking
those words to him would surely make the earth shake, or, at the very least, a
bolt of lightening was going to shatter the prominent sound of silence around
us.
We’ve now been married for almost fifty years. So often, when I tell him that I love him, he
responds by saying, “I love you more.” I
never argue with him, for during our dating years, I would often break off our
“going steady” relationship with him and say, let’s just be friends. Yes, it was always me that drew away from
him. Over those years, we did stay
friends, even when we were not dating.
He kept pursuing me, and never gave up on me. For that I will forever be grateful, for I
could have missed out on the greatest love that Jesus could have blessed me
with here on earth. Oh yes, we’ve gone
through our storms, but that is just the point.
When the two of you are bound together with cords of true love, that
love will stand the test of time, “in good times and bad, in sickness and in
health, for richer or for poorer, as long as ye both shall live,” just as our
marriage vows declared.
Does it appear to you that I have rather veered from my
original subject? Well, I haven’t. I
couldn’t figure out a better way to explain to you the difference between
knowing about Jesus, and truly knowing and loving Him so much that there is
nothing and no one that could ever take His place. I praise the Lord that He blessed our
marriage and kept us ever faithful and true to one another. We never wanted to corrupt or defile the
loving relationship that God had blessed us with by cheating on one another
either by having an affair, or by placing a career of any other thing in a
position of greater importance than our love for one another. Having said that, how much more should we be
committed to being faithful to the Lord our God? He has loved us first, and is forever
faithful towards us. Let us be diligent
to keep our relationship with Him undefiled, allowing no other gods or any
shape or form of their ways to have any place in our life, for they will
draw us away from Him. Don’t place any
idols before Him, not careers, materialism, pleasures, nothing and no one.
One night years ago, I remember praising the Lord with all
that was in me. In response to an
overwhelming realization of His great love for me, I was finding it hard to
come up with enough of the kind of words that could possibly express how much I
adored and loved Him. Suddenly an awful
sense of guilt came over me as a thought came into my mind: if I loved God more
than anything or anyone, did that lessen my love for my husband? Those are the kinds of thoughts and feelings
that come straight from the pit of Hell. Satan will try to throw into your mind every
lie imaginable in an attempt to deceive and draw you away from the Lord. Thank God, the Holy Spirit within us is far
more powerful, and ever present to guide and lead us into His truth. At that moment, He spoke to my heart and
revealed a far greater truth than I had understood before. God had loved me first, and a demonstration
of part of that love was shown to me when he gave me my husband to love and be
loved by in return. Our love for one
another was not diminished but putting God first. Instead, because we had both chosen to love
God first, He gave us a greater love for one another than we could have ever
had. God is a God of order: God, spouse,
family, and others. It is written: “But
seek ye first the kingdom
of God
By telling you this personal story, I hope it will help us
understand more fully why it is so important for every believer to stand strong
in our love for the Lord, and no other gods!
Our covenant with Him, within the limitations of a finite mind, may have
started out with some vague idea about abiding in obedience to a certain set of
ethics and moral rules. But that kind of
relationship may at best be limited to a legal status at best, possibly resembling a civil union held
together by a piece of paper, or contract, through which we may know about
Jesus, but the element of true mutual love for one another has not yet arrived. Jesus is the Living Word. Jesus, the Living Word, is He who saves and
sends the Holy Spirit to live within every believer.
He has always known and loved us. It is we who have dragged
our feet and have not yet turned the key to unlock the door of our heart. When we finally do open the door, it is up to
us to invite Him to come in. He comes in
with such an all consuming love we can not possibly comprehend and take it all
in at once. Like a newly married couple,
they think their love for one another could not possibly be greater. Yet, over the years, they come to realize
that the love they had for one another, when they first began, was only a
glimpse of the greater love to come. So
it is with our Lord. As we spend more
and more time with Him, out of a heart filled with love towards Him, we hold on
tight to Him, whisper in His ear, I love you too, and then take the next step
to willingly and whole heartedly turn over the key to our heart to Him. We learn more about Him, and as we do, He
draws us nearer and nearer to Him. As He
does, we find ourselves falling deeper and deeper in love with Him, no longer
with just head knowledge, but with a love that continues to grow and will
endure from now and into eternity. And
as for His love for us: “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide
in My love. If you keep my commandments,
you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and
abide in His love. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s
life for his friends.” (John 15: 9, 10, 13)
“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the
joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb. 12: 2) “For God so loved the world, that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.” (John 3: 16) As I said before, we can never out give the
Lord. How can anyone resist so great a
love and the gift of salvation? Have
nothing to do with any other gods; that is, do not corrupt and defile your love
towards Him, but in all your ways- in thought, word, and deed- remain ever
faithful to Him and Him alone, for He is ever and always faithful to you. It is His delight to pour out His love
towards you, and make His joy full and complete within you. Love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and
strength, not because you have to, but because loving Him with all of your
being is your greatest desire. Delight thyself in the Lord our God. Give all glory and honor unto Him. “O taste
and see that the Lord is good!” “Rejoice
in the Lord always, and again I say REJOICE!”
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