Dear Brethren,
Next weekend is Pentecost. Please mark your calendar: Pentecost is Sunday, June 4, 2017.
Exodus 34:22 You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest [also known as the Day of Pentecost, Feast of Harvest, and Day of the Firstfruits].
Today, as the sun sets, we will complete week number six. It is fitting that we partake of meat in due season as we rapidly approach the mid-season of God’s Feasts.
Psalm 145:15 The eyes of all wait upon thee; and you give them their meat in due season.
We find that it was in the third month [Passover was the 14th of the first month] that Israel received the two tablets of the covenant at Mount Sinai containing the Ten Commandments—and that occurred on the Feast of
Firstfruits or the Day of Pentecost. The giving of the Ten Commandments to Old Testament Israel on a Pentecost Day ties into the Church of the New Testament being given the power to live by the spiritual intent of God’s Law
through the power of the Holy Spirit—also on a Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1).
Today we are going to be looking at the first of the Ten Commandments and the impact that it must have on our lives. Pentecost shows the saints how it became possible to have a right relationship with God the Father. The Ten Commandments, given on this day, represent the mind and thinking of God. Prior to that time it was impossible for anyone to have a personal connection to the Father unless they had a special calling – as the prophets of old did. Since all have sinned (Romans 3:23), and sin is the breaking of the Ten Commandments, everyone was separated from God (1John 3:4).
Exodus 20:2-3 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.
Jesus said this is the first and great commandment. “You shall love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”
John 4:23-24 [Jesus said,] the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship him. God is Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
When we say, “God is Spirit,” we understand that God is not a part of the fundamental nature of the universe – but higher in essence, form and substance than the physical state in which we were created. In fact, not only is God Spirit, God is set apart above all others. “Holy” means to be set apart. As Creator, God demands that He has the very first place in our lives for our own well being. The first of the Ten Commandments requires a lifestyle guided by a right relationship with the one and only True God.
We must correctly worship and acknowledge only the True God. When we in God’s Church examine ourselves before Passover – we, almost to a man, give ourselves high passing marks with regard to the First Commandment. We need to take a closer look as we approach this Pentecost season of the giving of God’s Law because we are not as loyal to the one true God as we think we are, but have simply lost the ability to identify the false gods in our lives. God has called us to give Him our total loyalty.
Luke 10:27 [Jesus] answering said, You shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.
This answer from Jesus calls for us to whole-heartedly, single mindedly, with all our might, with undivided loyalty, obedience, service, love, devotion – worship the one true God. It is almost a direct quote from:
Deuteronomy 6:5 You shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
In Egypt, the Israelites faced a veritable host of false gods for every last thing that was considered important to them. Everything had a god attached to it whether it was Pharaoh, the sun, moon, the planets, thunder, climate, river stars, family, sex, crops, animals, even flies and beetles etc.
1John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
Brethren, let’s seriously ask ourselves today; what is most important to us? As true Christians we do not add God into an already full life of competing ideologies and philosophies, somehow relegating God to a distant second place in our lives and motivations—that’s idolatry. And it is breaking the First Commandment.
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"The Lord Thy God" |
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