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Meditation 5.31
On Saturdays, we consider a passage of Scripture:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
“You shall not murder.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
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“We have staked the whole of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” – President James Madison
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I have started to absorb the 10th commandment better of late. The envy/jealousy strain is running wide and deep in the US today. Everyone seems to be so concerned about what everyone else has. It is a greater poison to life than is recognized.
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Agreed, KRM. And it accounts for a lot of the economic problems we’re having today, i.e., the mortgage and credit card problems.
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Me too KRM!
How many sins does the 10th commandment cover? I can think of greed, jealousy, envy, lust, adultery, discontent, poor stewardship, oneupmanship, etc.
But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. 1 Tim 6:6-8
As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things. 2 Cor 6:10
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I took a required education class for my teaching credential from an ultra left wing professor whose only purpose in teaching was to attempt to indoctrinate students into accepting the fact that all of us white students are racists and all of the students who were “people of color” (which, we all know, is a self-evidently good term as opposed to the outdated “colored people” which is clearly an evil racist term) were victims of our unwitting oppression. (She was kind enough not to ascribe to us evil motives for our racist attitudes and behaviors.)
Anyway, this teacher gave us a short story to read about a classroom of poor black students whose black teacher took them on a field trip to FAO Schwartz so they could see some of the cool toys the decadent rich white kids got while they barely scraped by in their tiny run down apartments, playing hopscotch and jumprope. Apparently it was important to the teacher in the story to instill the stellar character qualities of greed and envy into these young minds who had previously been unaware of what they were missing and so were foolishly content with what they had.
My professor felt that this would be a wonderful story for us teachers to share with our students so they, too, could acquire the appropriate guilt or envy, depending on their skin color.
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The first 5 commandments (1st tablet) are covered by:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength”
The last 5 commandments (second tablet) are cover by:
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”
If I could just get a hold of those two commandments, everything God demands of me would be covered. I need to practice setting my theological baggage aside more often just focus on those two.
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Interesting Ree #5 Modern left wing politics is all about wealth and its redistribution based on the ever fluctuating social fad of the day.
Contentment is not only a foreign term, it is downright evil! It would dissolve their purpose for existence. Only a “white” racist like Paul could conceive of such a thing.
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I was in a small group at a church a long,long time ago. It was near the end of the year and we were asked to think about some spiritual desire we would like to see happen in the coming year. We were then to pray with a partner about that, as I recall. What came to me was the contentment Paul speakes about and that was my desire and prayer. This desire came to me over and over again in my prayer time and some interesting things happened.
It was after this, when my husband lost his job and we thought our house was going to be lost. It was a very trying time. I learned to rely much more on God and less on myself and others. I also learned to be content with far less than I thought I could. I learned money was important, but God was the most important.
It was as important for me to realize the importance of money as it’s relative unimportance in many areas. I tended to dismiss it’s proper place before this time. It does have a proper place and scripture says God knows what we need. At the same time, things will not give us contentment. That comes from renewing our minds and believing God.
I also needed to learn over the years the importance of taking every thought captive to Christ. When enviest thoughts come to me, I now examine them in light of what Christ has done and is doing for me. This has made a big difference in my life. Perfection will not come in this life, however.
I also found we can be envious of others in nonmaterial things. That also is something to take before the Lord.
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for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me
Honor your father and your mother
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Arcadia,
Good points! God is a jealous God Who knows our needs and how we were designed. We need to have our eyes looking to the Highest in order to have our lives in order so He demands it. The sins of our fathers do tend to be passed down to future generations (acohol abuse, anger, selfishnesss) as we are brought up in such a way but it is up to us to turn from those ways. At the same time, honoring our parents. Not blaming them for who we are or how we behave, accepting responsibility and honoring those who brought us into the world and raised us, in whatever way we were raised so we can now turn to God. What a mighty God we serve, thanks for pointing that out!
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