“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.”

— Matthew 22:37-38

Can you imagine someone commanding love? We can understand how God can command certain actions or even tell us how to speak or think. But to go into that innermost closet, into the depths of our hearts, and to command us to love, seems a breach of our free will. Yet God commands us to love Him.

Why is this the case? There are several reasons. God knows that we’re built to love something supremely. If we don’t love God, we’ll adore something less honorable, less exalted than He. And whatever we love most, we’ll inevitably resemble, just as we become like that which we worship. This is why God says that He is a jealous God and that we should have no gods before Him—not for His sake but for ours. God doesn’t need our love, nor does He need our worship. In fact, He doesn’t need anything from us. But we most definitely need Him. We need to worship and love Him so that our lives might be purified by that love.

If anything can ever lift us from the mire of our sin, it’s the power of love. As we love God and others, we will resist breaching our relationships with sinful thoughts and actions.

Today fix your gaze on Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom, and His love for you, His bride. Let God’s love for you kindle in your heart and spirit a greater love for Him.

“Oh, how I love Jesus . . .
Because He first loved me!”
Frederick Whitfield

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house . . . your neighbor’s wife . . . nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”

— Exodus 20:17

We’ve all done it, and yet it has been called the sin no one commits. One priest declared that in fifty years of hearing confessions, not one person had ever confessed to committing this sin. Another minister declared that in decades of leading prayer meetings, no one ever mentioned it.

What is this sin? It’s covetousness: desiring another’s possessions, eagerly wishing for what we don’t have. Covetousness is a root sin, a sin committed in the heart that can lead to sins committed outwardly, such as stealing. Covetousness is linked to greed, and the apostle Paul said greed was idolatry.

You can see covetousness everywhere in our culture, including messages that pour out of Madison Avenue. Advertisers prey on our lack for their financial gain. Even bumper stickers often appeal to covetousness, such as the ones that say “Born to shop” or “Whoever dies with the most toys wins.” (I prefer the bumper sticker that says, “He that dies with the most toys wins—nothing.”)

One day Abraham Lincoln was walking down the street in Springfield, Illinois, holding the hands of his two little boys who were wailing and crying. A neighbor stepped out of his doorway and said, “Mr. Lincoln, what’s the matter with the boys?” Answered Lincoln, “Just the same things that’s the matter with the whole world: I have three walnuts and each boy wants two!”

So what’s the cure for covetousness? The Bible has the answer. Covetousness, essentially, is fixing our hearts and desires upon the things of this world. But the Bible says, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). We need to replace covetousness with contentment, our greed with gratitude.

Today ask God to show you whether covetousness is an unconfessed sin in your heart. Then ask for His grace to give you contentment with, and gratitude for, the gifts He has given you.

“Greed has poisoned men’s souls.”
Charlie Chaplin
(On The Eve Of World War II)

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

— Exodus 20:16

The Hare Krishna cult (a form of Hinduism) believes there are five circumstances in which one may lie and remain sinless: in marriage, to gratify lust, to save one’s life, to protect one’s property, and on behalf of Brahma (the highest caste of Hindus). But God is Truth, and He abhors and abominates all lying.

The Ninth Commandment forbids lying on several levels. The worst level is perjury— lying about someone in a court of law. Our courts of law recognize this as a gross crime, but in Old Testament times, the people took it even more seriously. A witness who committed perjury would receive the same penalty as the criminal, such as death by stoning. Another level of lying includes the sins of talebearing, faultfinding, and criticizing. We must do nothing that will harm a person’s reputation. The third level is speaking falsely to someone.

Just as the Ninth Commandment forbids these three levels of lying, it also requires the opposite positive actions of speaking truthfully and witnessing for God’s truth. We must faithfully witness for the Lord and His Gospel, even if it costs us our lives. (The word “witness” in Greek is marturia, from which we get the word “martyr.” This developed because many people in the New Testament lost their lives for bearing witness to the Gospel.) Jesus was the ultimate true witness. At the same time that Peter lied in the courtyard, saying, “I do not know this man,” Jesus was inside before the Sanhedrin bearing faithful witness to the truth.

Have you lived in line with the Ninth Commandment? If not, choose today to avoid lying on all levels, to speak truthfully, and to witness to God’s truth.

“The trouble with stretching the truth
is that it’s apt to snap back.”
Saturday Evening Post

“You shall not steal.”

— Exodus 20:15

Some years ago, the state of Delaware opened a new turnpike. Motorists without exact change could pick up an envelope at the automatic toll booth, take it home, and mail the toll to the state at their convenience. During this experiment, which lasted twenty days, motorists took 26,000 envelopes but returned only 582. Some of the returned envelopes had paper and junk in them, but virtually none contained any money.

What would you have done if given the same opportunity?

As our nation moves further away from God, stealing is becoming epidemic. People learn to steal in part because of their upbringing. Once some parents spanked their little girl for stealing. Afterward that little girl dried her tears on a towel her parents had “taken” from a hotel. Schools have also played a part because they no longer post the Ten Commandments on their walls and because they teach that there are no absolute rights or wrongs in life.

But as Christians, God’s Word is our standard, and Scripture clearly forbids us to steal. It also commands the opposite positive action—that we be honest and generous. Christ taught that a person must repay what he or she has stolen. In Luke 19, Zacchaeus paid back four times the amount he had stolen as a tax collector. God wants us to have the same repentant attitude when we take what isn’t ours.

“But,” you say, “I’m not a thief. I’ve never stolen anything.” While most of us have never held up a bank, a large majority of us have helped ourselves to others’ belongings through seemingly harmless actions. Here are some “innocent” ways in which we break the Eighth Commandment (see if you can read this list without wincing): shoplifting, cheating for grades in school, cheating on taxes, ripping pages from library books, marrying or divorcing for money, taking kickbacks on contracts, faking insurance claims, stuffing ballot boxes, borrowing things and not returning them. We also rob God by not paying our tithes.

Do you have a habit or two you need to break to fulfill God’s Eighth Commandment? Thankfully, if we’ve broken the commandment, God grants us mercy and forgiveness through Christ. May God help you be completely honest in all your dealings with others.

“A kleptomaniac is a person who helps himself
because he can’t help himself.”
Henry Morgan

“You shall not commit adultery.”

— Exodus 20:14

As you well know, we live in a society that laughs at “outdated” ideas about sexual purity and marital faithfulness. Those who live by God’s standards are anomalies, called “oldfashioned” and “narrow-minded.”

Pardon me for getting a little personal, but how have our society’s attitudes affected your attitudes?

Let’s quickly refresh ourselves on God’s commands regarding marital fidelity. God created marriage vows and the marriage union in which a woman and a man become one flesh. A person commits adultery when he or she engages in a sexual union with a person other than his or her spouse. Such unfaithfulness often breaks up marriages, and it’s one of the two Biblical grounds for divorce. (The other is desertion by an unbelieving spouse.)

What many people don’t understand is that splitting up a marriage for any reason other than Biblical ones puts both spouses in positions to commit adultery (Matthew 5:32). By marrying, divorcing, remarrying, divorcing, and so on, many people today practice “serial polygamy”: having adulterous relations with one person after another, all supposedly blessed by marriage.

Jesus also taught that we could commit adultery in our minds. He said that “whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Considering how pervasive pornography is today, many people violate this command.

God has warned us that no adulterer, no fornicator, no homosexual will go to Heaven (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). No matter what we call it, God calls adultery sin. God created the Seventh Commandment because He wants the best for us. Sexual immorality destroys the mind, the body, happiness and satisfaction in marriage, and ultimately, the soul. Our heavenly Father doesn’t want us to experience any of those consequences.

If you’re married, do whatever it takes to guard your precious sexual union. When we follow God’s ways, we find what’s best for us. But if you’ve already gone astray in this area, remember that in Christ you can find forgiveness for and freedom from all these things. Confess, repent, and resolve through the Holy Spirit to remain obedient to God’s command.

“I know Christ can give the power to
say no, because He gave it to me.”

“… [Judas] went and hanged himself.”

— Matthew 27:5

Yesterday we looked at murder; today we look at suicide . . . a leading cause of death among young people in America today.

Suicide is the murder of ourselves, and since murder is wrong according to the Sixth Commandment, suicide is wrong. The Bible makes it plain that we have no more right to take our own lives than to take the life of another. Scripture mentions the sin of suicide just five times. In over four thousand years of Biblical history, only five people took their lives. All five were wicked men such as Judas, who sold the Savior for thirty pieces of silver.

Those who commit suicide take the precious gift of life that God has given them and fling it back in His face. They demonstrate their lack of faith in God’s existence and in the fact that God will work all things together for good.

William Cowper, a young Englishman who lived in eighteenth-century London, was so filled with hopelessness that he decided to take his own life. He bought some poison and ate it, but it only made him sick. Then he bought a gun, but it was defective and did not fire. Cowper subsequently tried to hang himself, but the rope broke. Finally he decided he would take a cab to the River Thames and drown himself, but it was so foggy that his cabdriver could not find the river. After two hours, the cabby drove Cowper home. In his room, Cowper opened his Bible and read about how much God loved him. Then and there, he asked Jesus into his heart and wrote the great hymn, “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.”

Jesus can turn even the bleakest circumstances into something beautiful. He not only gives new hope, He is the Way, the truth, and the life.

“Life is worth the living, just because He lives.”
“Because He Lives” By Bill and Gloria Gaither

“You shall not murder.”

— Exodus 20:13

This commandment, though stating a value we all hold, has tipped off some of the most heated debates in our society.

For example, people often debate how this commandment applies to abortion. Some contend that abortion can’t be murder because they believe that life doesn’t begin at conception. However, the Bible clearly states that a baby has life the moment he or she is conceived. In fact, unlike our culture, the Bible uses the same word for the baby inside the womb as for the baby after birth. Because babies are clearly human beings in God’s eyes, even from the first moment of conception, abortion is murder and forbidden by the Sixth Commandment.

Another hot topic tipped off by this commandment is capital punishment. If taking another human life is wrong, how can we turn around and take a murderer’s life? Let’s go back to the Hebrew to get the answer. In writing the Sixth Commandment, Moses intentionally passed over nine different Hebrew words for “kill” and chose the one that means “murder” (ratsach). In Exodus 21 God commands that people who commit certain sins should receive the death penalty. The word ratsach is not used in these cases, so capital punishment does not equal murder. (Note that killing in self-defense is not murder. In Exodus 22:2 we read that if a thief breaks into a house and the owner kills the thief, the owner won’t receive the death penalty because he or she defended home and family.)

Not only does the Sixth Commandment address hot topics, it goes deeper, penetrating to the secret motives of our hearts. Jesus said, “Whosoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the judgment.” Thus, unrighteous anger is a violation of this commandment. And to fully observe the Sixth Commandment, we must not only avoid murder and unrighteous anger, but we must proactively save lives. Jesus commanded us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the sick, visit those in prison, and share the Gospel with others.

While most of us don’t murder people outright, we may harbor unrighteous anger, or we may neglect helping those in need. What do you need to do to ensure that you obey the Sixth Commandment completely?

“Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.”
Benjamin Franklin

“And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.”

— Ephesians 6:4

Are you a father? If so, how is your relationship with your children? Are you enjoying a close, nurturing relationship or tolerating a distant, divided one?

Karl Marx once said that in order to take over any nation, one must create a breach between one generation and the next, preventing the transfer of strong values, morals, and beliefs. We saw this in our own nation as the famed “generation gap” between the youth of the sixties and the generation before them came closer to dividing fathers from sons and daughters than anything else in the history of this country. Since that time, we’ve seen the unraveling of the moral fabric of our nation, making our country vulnerable to influences of all kinds.

But we can have hope. The last verses of the Old Testament describe the greatly anticipated Day of the Lord, saying that just before Christ returns, God “will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers” (Malachi 4:6). At that time, children and their fathers will bond together once again. Even now we’ve begun to see a uniting, in heart and mind, of fathers with their sons and daughters.

Are you a father? If so, what part do you play in this promised bonding? Before you know it, your children will be gone. What spiritual and emotional legacy will your children carry with them into adulthood?

I hope that on Father’s Day this year all of us who are dads will commit to being godly fathers, bringing up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We need to teach our children the doctrines of our holy religion. We need to pray with them and for them, especially in these days of moral decline. Today, pray that God will give you the strength and courage necessary to devote your life to Him and to be a godly father.

“I believe . . . that husbands hold the keys
to the preservation of the family.”
James Dobson

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”

— Exodus 20:12

Do you remember the old slogan from the sixties “Never trust anyone over thirty”? For many in our culture, “authority” has become a dirty word. While all authority figures have been the target of this attitude, it seems particularly directed toward parental authority. But God, who is outside our ever-fluctuating social trends, tells us something quite different. In fact, He commands the opposite. In the Fifth Commandment, He tells us to honor our parents.

Some people suppose that this commandment deals only with children obeying their parents. It is true that when we are children, we must obey our parents, but later we can honor them, show them respect, and care for them. As we grow into adulthood, our relationships with our parents and our responses to their authority will determine our responses to other authority figures. In our egalitarian society, we tend to lose sight of the fact that the world consists of relationships between superiors and subordinates—teacher to student, employer to employee, and God to creature, for example. So the Fifth Commandment addresses an aspect of human nature that extends to every phase of a person’s life.

What do we gain by obeying this commandment? God tells us that if we honor our parents we will have long lives. Although this promise is a general principle and not an unconditional promise, we often see that people who honor their parents live to a ripe old age.

How is your relationship with your parents? Do you honor them? Whether they are living or dead, you can show respect to them. How can you honor your parents today?

“The thing that impresses me most about
America is the way parents obey their children.”
Duke Of Wellington