Soar in the Light

⁶ Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but He will heal us; He has injured us but He will bind our wounds. HOSEA 6  

²⁴ He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. 1 PETER 2

⁷ Return to Me, and I will return to you, says the Lord Almighty. MALACHI 3

The night is coming (John 9:4). It is high time to take God’s instructions more seriously, conscientiously.

⁷ Therefore, do not be partners with [the disobedient]. EPHESIANS 5

³⁵ You are going to have the Light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the Light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going. ³⁶ Put your trust in the Light while you have it, so that you may become sons of Light. JOHN 12

¹⁰ The axe is already at the root of the tree, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. MATTHEW 3

Do not let the Judgment catch you in an impure state.

¹ Lord, who may dwell in Your sanctuary? Who may live on Your holy hill? ² He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart ³ and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellow man, ⁴ who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the Lord, who keeps his oath even when it hurts, ⁵ who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken. PSALM 15

²² Obey Me, and you will never have cause for embarrassment; do as I say, and you will be safe from sin. SIRACH 24

²⁵ The right thing to do is to obey faithfully everything that God has ordered us to do. DEUTERONOMY 6

Zacchaeus climbed up a tree to see who Y’shua was (Luke 19:3).  You have done the same. So the Lord is saying to you now, “Come down immediately. I must stay at your house today” (verse 5).

²¹ Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. JOHN 14

³ This is love for God: to obey His commands. 1 JOHN 5 

¹³ Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. ¹⁴ For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. ECCLESIASTES 12

Beneficial to Man

¹ The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets that you broke. ² Be ready in the morning and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to Me there on top of the mountain.” ⁴ So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the Lord had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands… ²⁸ And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—The Ten Commandments. EXODUS 34

²⁴ The Lord our God ordered us to obey all these laws, out of reverence for Him, because in so doing, He can keep us alive and prosperous. DEUTERONOMY 6

The kingdom hopes the Ten-C will be kept in the tablets of your heart, “written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God” (2 Corinthians 3:3).

The Ten-C are God’s character in written form, put in writing to provide you with clear-cut, perfect and absolute pattern and measure of righteousness.   

¹⁷² …for all Thy commandments are righteousness. PSALM 119 kjv

The Ten-C seek to perfect the development not just of one or two human virtues but the whole man. They mirror the deformity and defects of human character, making apparent its sinful desires and infidelity of the heart; and teach the man how to overcome. It is impossible to commit a sin that is not condemned by at least one of the commandments. Without the Ten-C by which to judge the human action, nobody will be able to recognize just how lost he is.

⁷ I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” ROMANS 7

²⁰ …through the law we become conscious of sin. ROMANS 3

The Ten-C are meant to be the fundamental law of the land. This explains why the commandments come with implementing rules and regulations: 613 in the TaNaKh (Old Testament) and 1,089 in the Brit Chadasha (New Testament). They are the embodiment of God’s nature, the foundation of His government. “They are like a strong cage at the zoo, which protects us from the fierce, destructive reach of the devil” (http://www.tencommandmentfacts. com/pg1.asp).

To the wicked they may be mere suggestions, but to the righteous it is a protocol that must be observed conscientiously. John W. Ritenbaugh said, “Christianity is neither a religion nor an organization but a way of life. We worship God in our home—in the way we speak, in the way we act towards one another, in the way we rear our children, in our homemaking practices. Worship has to do with the way we work. It has to do with the way we drive our cars. It has to do with the way we dress. It has to do with the way we use our eyes, ears, nose, throat—everything!”

The Ten-C aim to mold us into a self-disciplined nation. The beauty of it is, we get to observe righteousness with joy and we volunteer to self-police ourselves and correct our infractions—even when no one is looking, no matter the personal cost to us. Society can be improved without instilling fear upon anyone, without forcing or downgrading anyone to the level of a beast. (Wonder which is better for the governments to do: To build up police and armed forces to run after the wicked or to promote the Ten-C?)

¹ If you fear the Lord, you will do this. Master His Law, and you will find Wisdom. SIRACH 15

²⁵ The Law overflows with Wisdom... ²⁶ The Law brims over with understanding... ²⁷ It sparkles with teachings. SIRACH 24

The Ten-C are given to benefit all humankind. Live by them to sanctify yourself. Use them as signposts to your restoration. Live by them to reap what is good always (Deuteronomy 6:24 kjv). Live by them to establish your moral authority on solid ground. 

A father brandishes a bottle of whisky and gulps from it as he admonishes his young not to drink. Will he be an effective teacher to his son? Of course not. He does not have moral authority.

Believers and non-believers alike will be observing the coworker of God and his family, like fish in the aquarium, more often intently, expecting to find godly character in them—always. Probably to be assured that God’s instructions are doable, everyone in the family adheres to it without reservation, everyone enjoys it and benefits from it.   

Nothing is so hard to gain and so easy to lose as moral authority. Another word for it is credibility. Without it the Christian ministry will have great difficulty in prospering. In 1987 Assembly of God minister Jim Bakker was forced to resign from his PTL televangelism network following threats of the revelation of payoffs to former secretary Jessica Hahn, to whom Bakker’s staff members had paid $265,000 to keep secret her sexual services to him. Fellow Assembly of God minister Jimmy Swaggart publicly denounced Bakker’s scandal as “a cancer on the Body of Christ.” Shortly afterward, Swaggart himself admitted sinning against God and wife after being caught on film taking a prostitute to a motel. His television members of two million turned their backs on him. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_ evangelist_scandals)

Lucifer made a showcase of Bakker and Swaggart, claiming in the minds of believers and non-believers alike that all coworkers of God were hypocrites. Instead of advancing the cause of the new covenant, the two were made to look like fumbling fools and a big joke. The Most Holy Name was profaned.

¹⁰ Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Messiah Y’shua, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. 1 CORINTHIANS 1 kjv