Dear Father in Heaven: I love You very much. Thanks for all You do for us including forgiving us when we mess up. Please forgive me of my sins and sinful thinking. Please, Lord, watch over "Little Joseph", and Lord, thanks for a great day. Be with the others on our prayer list. Thanks for great time singing today, Lord. Lord, please place now on my tiny little mind a message for this day and then help me to dispatch it. In Jesus' Name, I pray. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters: I am having trouble staying awake today for some reason. I know I have not been sleeping well at night, concern about our cutting back on the work we do for the Lord. (And I stopped here until Friday; just had to rest.)
Thursday/Friday: August 28-29, 2014, Greatest Commandment (Day Three)
Matthew 22:34 - Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested Him with this question: 36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (NIV)
Brothers and sisters, I want to pick up where I left off Wednesday. I was going over the Ten Commandments and pointing out that in my opinion if we truly follow the Greatest Commandment, and I mean really follow it, it covers the original Ten Commandments. I invite your opinion.
Exodus 20:14 - "You shall not commit adultery." (Seventh Commandment)
Exodus 20:15 - "You shall not steal." (Eighth Commandment)
Exodus 20:16 - "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor." (Ninth Commandment)
(All NIV)
Let me group these three together and just say a few things about these:
Adultery does not just mean you went to bed with someone, you could just be thinking about it, for, and this is scary, God knows what we are thinking. That would be the seventh commandment. Yes, your thinking counts.
Stealing is stealing!! In God's eyes if you rob a bank, rob a stagecoach (I just had to slide one in once in awhile), rob the Amish men in a buggy as did happen last week, or just take home a few rolls of tape or nuts and bolts from your workplace, that would be stealing. Don't take it if it does not belong to you. And that would be the eighth commandment.
If you give false testimony against your neighbor. This, brothers and sisters, is not just in court, this is also when standing in your yard talking about someone. Yes, it is called gossip. Do we tell some things to underage children that are what we call "little white lies?" Yes, and I might be really held to task about Santa. We did use that to tell the children about Jesus. Also when kids would ask me if I was the "real Santa" I would say, softly, I am as real as it gets. There are other little things we should tell young children until they become of the right age to know them.
Anyway, on all of these commandments if we follow the Great Commandment and we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and we love our neighbor, and I think if we truly did that, and followed those Great Commandments, we would not break those three.
Exodus 20:17 - "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." (NIV)
On today's market it should read about like this. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his Cadillac, Lincoln, his house, garage, or even his woodpile." Sometimes it is hard to look at your neighbor's house, maybe they put on an addition, and you look at theirs and want to add onto your house. The thinking here is about evil, if you are not being evil, just adding because you also need space, that's okay. Say you like his car, and you look at it and then you purchase one, that is not coveting, unless you are doing it just to show off. What the Bible talks about coveting, means doing it for evil. These commandments tie together a lot, and this the tenth commandment surely is covered by the Great Commandment.
While I truly believe we need to learn and study those original commandments and all other commands in the Bible, I truly believe that if we are walking in love with Jesus, with all our heart, soul and mind, and we truly love our neighbors, and remember a neighbor can be across the street, or on the other side of town or across the great oceans. Your neighbors come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Yes, we need to love God and love all our neighbors. With that said, I once again say that if you really follow that Great Commandment you have the others covered.
After going over all those commandments and talking about them, I just want to say this. PRAISE GOD FOR OUR LORD JESUS who died to save us from our sins. Someone shout AMEN.
In my messages this week, and while preaching and being a pastor, there are two things I've really tried and will keep trying to get across to all those people whom I witness to. I try and tell them about Salvation through Jesus, and Love, loving God and loving your neighbor. I also want to point out that love is not sex. And of all the gifts that God has given us, "LOVE IS THE GREATEST!"
Well, it is time to wrap up this week.
So go forth now and share your blessings. Have a great Labor Day and God willing I will be back writing next Tuesday. Love ya, and please share my love with others.
Pastor Dan
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment