Back to Basics Part 3: O my ____!

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Exodus 20:7

I have personally struggled with this commandment every day of my life! Why is it that I automatically want to say O my god? (please note the little g)

When I was younger I remember thinking to myself:

"Why do people use the Lord's name in vain to express themselves? If you think about it... why don't we use a name that has some evil force behind it.. like HITLER!"

Seriously! God is so amazing! Why do we say such things about Him? Why do we use His name when we are mad?

The 21 century has brought about a whole new addition to our dictionaries..... eg. LOL, BRB.. and many more that I do not use and are surprised to see others using!

Among those are the letters O...M... and G.... together.. they form a 'cool' saying that everyone is using!

I'm going to invent a new one... SIOTGM... can you guess what it means? Satan is out to get me! That's right people. Just when we think we have an idea of all the tricks Satan uses to pull us away from God, he throws something new at us. I wonder if he has a tracker that counts every time someone uses the Lord's name in vain. Imagine if there were a tracker to see every time Satan's name was used as a swear word... tally them both up... who do you think is winning?

"...For the Lord will not Acquit anyone who misuses His name" Exodus 20:7

Lord, FORGIVE me! I do not realise the severity of my words...

When you hear that someone has been gossiping about you, or someone says something bad about you... how does that feel? If someone started using YOUR name as a swear word, how would that make you feel? It hurts me when someone says something bad about me.. but imagine that happening a billion times a day!

Personally, I don't think it is any better when we change the swear to other words:O my gosh, Gosh darnit, Sacre Bleu (as oppossed to Dieu), etc.

Then again, why are we swearing at all!!!

Matthew 5:34-36 But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
In regards to the wicked man.... "His mouth is full of curses and lies and threats; trouble and evil are under his tongue." Psalm 10:7

Are the words you choose to use affecting your spirit? Do the words you use reflect God's love to others?

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

Back to Basics Part 2.1

Hi dee ho!

I just wanted to add something to my last post.

This is a video (or audio) by Mark Driscoll on Addictions, after listening to it, I realised that it fits well with my post on idols!

I can't figure out how to embed it in this post so please use this link:

http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/proverbs-2009/addiction

You can download it to your computer or ipod for free as well!

Even if you don't think you have an addiction, this video will inspire and challenge you!

Back to Basics - Part 2 - No idols

"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: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments." Exodus 20: 4 - 6

I am the kind of person that when I read something - I just get the general idea, or touch the surface of the matter. It is when I stop and take time, like I am doing with these series, that I tend to go deeper, explore meanings and develop new thoughts and conclusions. Are you like that, or does everything just hit you all at once? That would be amazing!

On to the topic - Our God is a jealous God!

So on the surface to me this means that we shouldn't create things to worship, like a big Buddha or the Greek god's etc. There are some other things that come to mind:

1. 
   
   These words stood out to me "any likeness of any thing that is in heaven". When I read this I thought of all of the things that we do create to represent heaven or Jesus. For example, almost every 'Jesus' I see is white, some even have blond hair. Does it say somewhere in the Bible that he is white? I am not positive, but I don't think so! Don't you think that when we create those false images of Jesus, that it could turn someone away from God? Maybe hinting a bit of Christianity's racial preferences?


2. 
   
   "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." Do we have idols in our lives that we worship, absolutely adore, we wish we could meet, be friends with, be just like? Are there other masters that we serve - this could tie into the first commandment - who directs the course of our lives?


3. 
   
   "...visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." That part is scary to me... but it also makes sense in a way. For example, in my family history I do not know of someone who was a Christian. Naturally, when you raise your child, you use techniques that were taught to you, even if you don't realise it. Attributes are passed down, generation to generation. Reality TV shows us that there are families that do drugs together, multiple generations with similar failures (divorces, crimes, abuse). Thankfully we have Jesus. He can turn things around for us and for our generations, but first we have to let Him into our life and let Him change us!
   

American Idol... that name makes me laugh because it's so true. North Americans idolise celebrities like they are gods. Back in the Roman Era there was Zeus and Aphrodite. Now we have Michael Jackson & Britney Spears!

I recently heard the words "Righteous Indignation" and I think that this a great description of the meaning:

"We are supposed to feel righteous indignation when we see something wrong. God meant us to. It is a sign of spiritual health and a good conscience. If we are so tolerant and broad-minded that we can watch wrong and feel nothing there is something seriously wrong with us. God himself feels angry when he sees wrong and evil. It was in righteous indignation that he burned Sodom and Gomorrah to the ground. And it was in righteous indignation that Jesus threw the moneychangers out of the temple."1

I can't imagine the righteous indignation God feels when he sees us sinning. I don't think it's because "She's not listening to me!!" but because "I love you so much, why can't you see that!". He wants what is best for us and when we don't follow His commandments it is like spitting in His face and telling Him we know what is best for ourselves.

Have you ever thought about the universe? I try not to, because it hurts my head. But that is how we should feel about God! We can't put Him in a box, put Him in a text book, we can't know Him fully while we are on earth! We are fools to think that we have Him figured out!

We should not idolise, as it just draws our hearts and minds from God and wastes precious time getting to know Him.

1 Taken from: http://pages.prodigy.net/jmiller.cb/a115.html

Back to Basics - Part 1 - No other gods

The other day I read Exodus Chapter 20 again. It inspired me to go 'back to the basics' of my faith. I want to make a post for each commandment and just unpack what each commandment means to me. There are many areas of my life that I need to work on, by spending time exploring each commandment I hope to identify some of these areas. My hope is that this will inspire others to look at their walk again. Are there areas of your life that you enjoy being ignorant about? We so often focus on the great things that God provides for us, and we choose to forget that one day will we be judged. If we are living fully in God then how will we ever fully live with God.

I don't mean to impress that if we break any of these laws, that we are doomed to hell. Otherwise I would know where I am going already. I do believe that we need to make every effort to follow these laws as part of a Holy and full-filled relationship with God. I don't want to take advantage of God's love, and I want to be aware of His anger towards sin. What a life we could live if we didn't have these stumbling blocks called sin.

"You shall have no other gods before me"

On the surface, to me this means that God is the one and only entity that we should worship, pray to, listen to and love. It is a fairly simple commandment. However, to me this also means so much more. God should be our life, our everything. It is very easy to focus our lives on other things. I tend to base my success on things like money, possessions, popularity, and appearance. What do any of these things have to do with God?

It so easy to see when you write it down, that these are worldly standards. Every day we are told that these are the expectations and guidelines for our lives. If we are failing in any of these areas then we are losing the game, sub-par.

How do you justify these things in your life? If you are focusing on worldly pleasures, are you serving another god? Isn't Satan the god of the world? How do we interrupt the cycle, stop, and re-focus our lives for God?

These are all big, challenging, and confusing questions. It is easy to say what to do or not to do, the real challenge is living it out.

I think God is challenging me to refocus my life, and disconnect from the other gods in my life. Here is what I am trying to do to accomplish that:

I) Read the manual for life he has provided, the Bible. It amazes me how practically every verse provides insight into God. No matter where I open the Bible to - I find words to challenge, humble and encourage me. My biggest mistake in my walk with God was to stop reading the Bible. Now, I realise it is the best tool we have for plugging into God. Are you thinking... "umm yeah, that's a no brainer?". Well it does seem like a very obvious statement, but it is so easy to allow ourselves to be blissfully ignorant, especially when we don't want to face the consequences.

II) Don't just read the manual, put it to action! When you buy something that requires assembly, it comes with a manual. With a show of hands, how many people actually read the manual before trying to put it together? This is so funny to me because it's so true. I am just picturing moments where my husband and I have bought something, and I ask him.. "Do you want to read the directions?" and he always replies "Nope! I got this!". That's not fair to him, I do the same thing.. it's just funnier when it's someone else right? ;) Usually, we will end up putting something in upside down, or resort to looking and that darn manual. Wouldn't it have been so much easier if we had just read it in the first place and followed the directions?

Another example: my mom always told me, read the whole recipe before you start so you know what you have to do. Well the other weekend I made a pie... and when I finished making the pie I got to the end of the recipe and it said chill for 4 hours! But we were eating it in 2! If only I had read the recipe, just like my mom said... don't you hate it when your parents are right? ;)

III) Cut the ties of the weights that are holding me down. What is holding me back? What habits have I formed that I need to change.

I think there are endless steps we have to follow in this life. We are constantly growing, changing and adapting. There's no.. do this and this and this and you will be ok. At this moment in my life, these are 3 steps I need to focus on and as you can see they are all related, their purpose is to bring me back to God, the one and only.