It's good that we remember this birth event isn't it. Each country has them and it is wonderful that we can say with some certainty we have a history and a starting point! We write lot's about it, and hopefully we watch a fireworks display and feel proud of being part of our group.

Christianity has two really big birthdays for each person to celebrate.

The day Christ was born (we take it generally at 25th December) and the day we are reborn (when we give Christ control of our lives.
 
Great days! Good to remember and if you haven't got to that second birthday yet, it's there are ready for you when you do. Just stay true! Keep searching for truth and pure love!

They will lead you to that birthday.

A longer blog tomorrow.... have a wonderful day today! Canada will!

Then, we really don’t think they apply and if they do they are probably outdated. With this thinking pattern, we have an opportunity to take a look into them. To do this we need to understand who probably wrote them, around when, and maybe have a guess at why (actually more than a guess because it tells us why).

Do these words even have any relevance for us today? They were written a long time back to a big bunch of escaped slaves! Why would we even think of listening to them?

Not everyone knows there are more than one place where the commandments are written. Exodus 20 is one. Here the commandment says . . .

The person who wrote it was probably a guy by the name of Moses and he claims to have got these exact words from God on some stone tablets.

Today we would probably say “yeh, right!” in a cynical way.

Nobody in those days had that attitude so maybe things were a bit different then. It’s rather amazing that a whole culture adopted this and propagated it forward right through experiences where they were mixed in with other people to try and give them different values, and remove this very aspect from their lives. These words stuck in the hearts and minds of a nation for thousands of years.

Can you think of anything important enough to do the same for our culture that has been said in the last ten years?

Okay, so Exodus 20 says this, where else can we expect to see similar words in the bible?

Well Deuteronomy, another book has the exact same words in chapter 5.

So let’s look at the context of these words in Exodus. . .

“1 Here are all of the words God spoke. He said,

 2 ‘I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of Egypt. That is the land where you were slaves.

 3 "Do not put any other gods in place of me.’”

The words suggest Moses was quoting them as if God himself said them. So why remind the people of who he was, surely they knew?
 
Well maybe! What we all do is look at our lives from a selfish perspective. We have to because that’s the only existence we know and are an expert in. The rest is what we try to figure out.

The typical Israelite of the time, if the bible is to believable, had been a slave. They had been exposed to a culture which was pretty advanced and also pretty loose with morals. (Royalty interbred to keep the power in the family). Gold and silver were real important as were various spices and foodstuffs. Sex was something people did publicly in foreign temples (probably a bit like a live porn show) and so people didn’t have a very clear idea of what God appreciated when they got given this list.

The thing that they did know is that some totally abnormal things happened to enable them to get away from their slave masters and that this was too strange and amazing to be random chance. They knew a super power was doing it but were probably not to sure who or what this was. That’s why God set out the list with Moses to tell them it was he that had organized their escape.

So what does this mean to us?

Maybe because if God happens to be who he says he is, he is around today and we are likely to have to be careful not to screw up our relationship with him! A bit like being careful of disrespecting someone who has the ability to really screw with our future!

So, say we buy the fact there might be a God, what is this statement actually saying to us today?

We don’t worship gods nowadays do we?

None of us build little or big images of gods and go worship them every day! In fact worship is a word generally reserved for specific overly accentuated attitudes towards movie stars and rock stars, as typified by the term “groupie” that we use. Normal folk don’t do a lot of this do we?

Let’s see. . .our god’s are probably a little less obvious. How about the BMW, Mercedes, Honda or other loved car bought so we can show off to our buddies? What else do we own that’s like that? What do we spend a fair bit of our income on, simply because we want to be better than others and be able to show others how much better we are? Those electronics that capture our mind and emotions, like our iPods, iPhones, iPads, big screen TV’s? Are these wrong to own and have?

No!

What is wrong is when we put them ahead of our relationship with God and others. It’s wrong when we replace God with these things and people. When doing things with them and for them replaces our time of doing things with and for God!

Do we give God the leftovers after we have filled our lives with our little gods? Do we really love God properly?

The Christian God is not one who wants half relationships! He wants a deep intimate relationship with us where we respect each other so much that there is no-one or nothing else that is more important. Where we dedicate our lives to being with and around Him!

We have a much better deal than the “groupie” who hangs around where that rock star goes. We have a life where we as part of the church are engaged to be married to God (That’s how the bible say’s it). It is that level of intimacy! It’s family, not worship from afar! We get to go into the inner parts of God’s home. He doesn’t show us his public image, but reveals his love to us personally.

That’s the relationship God wants and that’s why he says “Do not put any other gods in place of me!”