1 John 4:10 NLT “This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”
Take a moment to absorb this verse.
I have wondered for many years whether My first commandment should have been “Be loved by God” instead of
Exodus 20:3 ESV “You shall have no other gods before Me”
The first sentence leading to the 10 commandments though, shows My deep love:
Exodus 20:2 ESV “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”
To the Israelites this meant many things (love, protection, being saved, being rescued, going from powerless to powerful, immense relief). To Me it meant that I loved them so deeply I would do anything for them. They had fallen into disobedience, they had rejected Me in many ways and they had become very much like the Egyptians in their culture. They tried to fit in and were rejected, and, even so, I loved them deeply and dearly. Yes, they still were Jewish and separate from the Egyptians but it is so hard for My people to be in this world and not become part of this world.
The answer to this…let Me love you, then you won’t want to be part of this world in the same way, you will want to be part of Me.
Imagine for a moment what My statement prefacing the 10 commandments would have meant to the Israelites…
I just rescued them from slavery. They were powerless to do anything for themselves and they were in very dire circumstances with the Egyptians wanting to control and suppress them. They were hated and treated shamefully and I rescued them. Imagine your relief if you were a slave to the most terrible master that ever existed…a master who cared nothing for you and didn’t care if you were alive or dead except that if you died it would inconvenience him because he had work to be done. Imagine being treated so poorly that you did not have proper living conditions and every day you were asked to push yourself physically beyond what is humanly possible. Imagine your life feeling impossible and worthless in every sense of the words…and I show up unexpectedly and save you from this life. I take you out into the edge of town, separate waters miraculously for you, and then move you into a safe place in the desert where you will be able to reconnect to Me, worship Me and not be threatened by other nations.
The reason I wanted them to go 3 days into the desert so that they could worship Me was not for Me, it was for them. I knew that was what they so deeply needed.
And I know that is what you so deeply need…to worship Me.
Not out of reverence, or obligation, or to be obedient, but because that is what your mind, soul, and body are simply so desperate to do.
More on this tomorrow…
I believe this is a message to us from God, written from His perspective – Sherri
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