As many know, the last book of God’s word describes those who will be saved (Rev. 22:14) ” Blessed are they that DO His Commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life”.
The Lord guided me to do this post to more throughly show examples of keeping His Commandments. To get a clearer view on what it means to “Walk the walk”. When it was recently revealed to me about the 144,000 ( post “The 144,000” listed under Salvation), it really sent me to do some soul searching and to realign my path to help bring the truth out more fully and seriously. Partial obedience WILL NOT satisfy. It is of the DEEPEST concern for our spiritual welfare to know what is required of us.
Jesus said few will enter into the eternal kingdom. Ellen White (our last Prophetess) said the same thing. They are not lying. So we must have a healthly fear (reverence) and look at our lives and ask– Am I doing enough to be found worthly of His kingdom? As we read above, His word makes it clear His Commandments are key. The following guide will make it very plain to examine your life to see if you are indeed DOING His Commandments and not just going through the motions. Let us break down the “walk”.
#1 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart , mind and soul”
Are you doing these things— Reading His word daily? Praying daily? Telling people about Him daily or at least very frequently?Do you pray frequently a similar prayer as this? “Father, help me to keep your Holy Commandments, and if I error please let me know about it”. If you are, you’re well on your way to doing the first one.
#2 “No other God’s before Him, or worship Idols”
Do you have a certain hobby or pursuit that constantly is taking most of your spare time? Are you placing objects or persons before Him? We must be careful to use our time wisely and not devote our spare time to continually putting things or even loved ones in front of our Lord. Let me give you an example.
Let’s say your spouse has worked hard for a long time in pursuit of a certain degree. Their graduation is next Saturday. They are excited to “finally” get the degree. You think long and hard about attending, you say to yourself ” It’s just this once, God will understand, I’ll go”. No! You have now put your spouse BEFORE God. This is particulary bad because it’s a “premeditated sin”. If you make little “exceptions” like this and put people or things in front of Him, you are carelesly tossing aside His word- not good!
Read (Numbers 15:32) for alittle story of a man who put his family before God and His Law (harmlessly collecting sticks, so he thought). And he didn’t get a second chance!
#3 “Do not take His name in vain”
This is pretty clear cut but what many don’t realize is the following. When you HEAR someone in your presence take the Lord’s name in vain you MUST correct Him. If you do not, YOU have just silently agreed with what they have done. You don’t have to go into a sermon with them , it can be a simple “You know it’s better to say Jeepers Creepers” and leave it at that. Ofcourse they may want more info, and it’ll be a chance to spread His word!(that’s why it’s a good idea to have cards with your name and number with you-for studies)
#4 “Keep the Sabbath Holy”
By keeping it “Holy” it is meant that we are not to do our normal activities (work, pleasure and such). This Is the Lord’s Day. It’s amazing how often He called it “My Sabbaths” in the Old Testament. Proper worship and respect is our duty for this day. But some think ” Oh, I’ll run to the store real quick and buy that little item I forgot to get for lunch” No! Or they will say ” I’ll stop at the gas station because I forgot to do it yesterday, He’ll understand”. No! These “little” things are NOT LITTLE to God. You might as well go to the keg party because in God’s sight YOU JUST DID!
Read again the little sticks story (Numbers 15:32-36). If you continue to do these little breaks here and there, you’ll be grieving the Holy Spirit.
#5 “Honor your Father and Mother”
This one isn’t a part-time one when YOU feel like it. It mean always honoring them. You don’t yell at them or generally dis-respect them. Here’s an example. Your Father promised to help you on that loan payment, but he didn’t do so. Father’s day is coming up in a couple days. You say to yourself ” Forget him! He doesn’t deserve any call from me!” That would be bad to the Lord. Instead you should swallow your pride and call him anyway. Honoring takes precedence over “our” feelings.
#6 ” Do not murder”
Thankfully we need not worry (almost everyone) about the “literal” act of doing this. But the spiritual one , explained by our Lord (Matt 5:21-22) is where we shouldn’t get into heated exchanges with people. Murder in our eyes is considered as “breaking” this Commandment.
#7 “Do not commit adultery”
Again this one is pretty clear cut. But it would include “any” sex outside of marriage. Because His word says fornicators will not be allowed in the God’s Kingdom (Eph 5:5).
# “Do not steal”
This one is wider than many think. For example if you hire someone to do work for you and you short-change him in what’s right for the work he did–you have “stolen” labor from him. You see how this has ALOT of variations? When you go to do your taxes DO NOT short change the government. If you do, you have stolen from the government. Remember Jesus said “render what is Ceasars to Ceasar and to God what is God’s” (Luke 20:25). This one really requires you keep a mindful watch that you do not steal.
#9 ” Do not bear false witness against your neighbor”
This one I believe comes up the least often. But when someone does it , it is really bad to the Lord. It covers lying AGAINST someone. Not just the typical lying that is done. Although that is called an abomination to God (Prov. 12:22)
#10 ” Do not covet”
This is another of those wide open ones. It covers ALOT. We must be careful that we don’t want, want, want. We can want money, things, people’s approval over God’s approval, etc. above and beyond what we truly need. The ultimate breaker of this one was Satan. He wanted (coveted) worship, power, exaltation. His coveting was his undoing. So we too must be sure we aren’t coveting. This is a sneaky one , for sure!
Hopefully this is a good guideline for your “walk” and possibly it has made you aware of some little things that are really BIG things to God.. The Lord doesn’t want ANY to miss His kingdom. But His pardon for you and I meant we are given a clean slate. The Holy Spirit comes in and helps us walk uprightly. We dare not go on messing our clean slate up (continual sinning) if we truly love Him(John 14:15) and want to be called into His Kindom.Remember we are told we only have two duties (Ecc 12:13) “Fear God and keep His Commandments”. The “fear” part comes in when we don’t want to do those little “breakings” for fear our walk will not be right with Him.Let us go to bed each night knowing we did our best according to His word.
In Christ, Rob
Godsloveandlaw's Blog 
July 9, 2011 at 4:40 am |
So true that talking the talk is vastly different than walking the walk. “Many will say to me in that day, Lord Lord…”
July 9, 2011 at 4:51 am |
Yes, Todd, sadly the Lord will say those words. But NOW we can do what is right and walk uprightly, for tomorrow we may not get the chance.
July 9, 2011 at 6:18 am |
To go to church instead of attending one of your wife’s most important days of recognition and accomplishment, like a graduation, sounds flat out silly. With this kind of decision, one would never keep a healthy relationship, therefore never keep a woman in there life. I would rather live a happy and accomplishment filled life with my beautiful wife, in this life that we are living NOW, than to live a dull life of solitude and loneliness or divorce, in hopes that a “self interpreted command” will some day bring me happiness. It is these kind of irrational, self interpreted “beliefs” that make me stray from Christianity. These type of beliefs (skipping your wife’s graduation in belief that attending would be a pre-meditated sin) sound as silly to me as that of worshiping a sun god, moon god, Aphrodite, Dionysus, or L. Ron Hubbard. Makes me wonder if many years from now there will be a different “truth” and people will look back at us and think we were as silly as we currently think of greek mythology, or religions that once sacrificed many of there own people to the “rain gods”. I have always been taught that god is fair, and will always believe so. When one starts turning every aspect of life in to a religious decision, and looks at every simple thing as a cant do because they can relate it to a “rule”, they are putting themselves in a situation to be a slave of god. God does not want his people to be slaves. That would not be a Fair God.
July 9, 2011 at 3:06 pm |
Brother, I fear for you to be very honest. YOUR beliefs and God’s don’t match. To obey God’s Law when it is covenient for us mocks the Almighty. Why even make Commandments? According to you they should be called “The great 10 Options”. WE should be the deciders right? Your “God” and mine are COMPLETELY different. Your complete lack of fear in doing right before God, according to His word,may bring you what you desire–happiness it THIS life. The eternal life appears not a serious concern.
July 9, 2011 at 6:56 pm |
#2 states, No other God’s before Him, or worship Idols. Now this could be interpreted in many ways. It could be ones own opinion that they should extend this too many rules. It could be ones opinion that that it simply means what it says, put no GODS before him, or Worship any other. Attending a graduation is not thinking of another god or worshiping your wife. Your wife is not an idol, by attending a graduation you are in no way putting her in your mind as a higher power than the lord. So my thought is not that we have a different God, but just a different interpretation.
July 9, 2011 at 9:16 pm |
I can see your reasoning for the interpretations. What I am pointing out here is the “desire to please man or woman” and then consequently transgressing God’s Laws. A decision is made to place one of them SECOND. That is not right to God.
It’s your thinking that these little breaks here and there don’t upset God, that I feel could set you up for failure before Him (of which I would hate to see-hence this post).Each must decide whether to follow God’s word “to the best of their ability” or “as conviently as they see fit”.
July 10, 2011 at 2:23 am |
What i think this is about is the spin. Everything can be spun to be convenient to themselves. For one to find it convenient to show up and support there family, and skip church. Another might find it convenient to give themselves a reason to feel good about themselves. Or sometimes referred to as a religious high. Putting a personal spin on something does not make it any more true to anyone but the man who put the spin. Example : If someone said that they believed doing any thing on Saturday to do with business, work, money, etc. is a sin. That is there spin and because they spun it they believe it hole heartedly. What if the next man spun it again to say that since you rent property at $X amount a month – and that equals $X amount a day – Therefore you should return the amount of rent paid for on Saturdays because otherwise you were conducting and running a for profit business on the Sabbath. Or if one is currently running ads for business on Saturday that could be spun into conveniently broken law or sin. To spin. “your not allowed to throw the ball with your left hand in this game” says the kid without a left arm, “dont go to your wife;s graduation” says the man with no wife. Its way to easy to sit and think about how everything should be, and have a should be declaration or spin that tailors in to our own life enough that you still feel worthy. In my opinion a relationship with god is something you can feel inside. And if your spiritually good with the Lord, you know. You do not feel inside, that you need to keep proving in new ways all the time, if you are at a good place with the lord. But again, just like most others, that is my spin, but that relationship is between the LORD and I, If I am worthy. “May God be my only judge.” You speak in alot of “truth’s” all the time, some are, but alot are your spins. I always just let it be, but lately you have put me in an uncomfortable position with some of the stuff you say. You say things to me about how I did on Your Sabbath. I am your neighbor, it is not for you to worry about what I do on a saturday. Its actually kind of creepy, how do you know if I “took it easy” on a saturday or not. Why be occupied thinking about what your neighbor is doing. And some of the stuff you say, Especially the one where you prayed that an auto accident would happen on the interstate so that it would be backed up and people would see your Sabbath billboard. That was really weird. In your spin, I and most others, may not be on “The right Path”. But thats in YOUR spin. Wow, this is crazy…. Basically what I am saying is that I would like to be removed from your mailing list, I do not need your propaganda in my life. I feel like for so long you have been throwing YOUR beliefs an judges at me for so long, telling me what YOU think with no regard that you stomp on others beliefs. Now since i have told you in many ways that I dont beleive in your spins, but you still always shove them at me, this time I will shove back – With no regards I will state my spin, I think it is very hard for you to have a spiritual connection with the Lord, because I think your ways are that of Religious Addiction. I think your practice ways are coocooo. But I do understand addiction as I have fallen to them myself, so I can understand. But with religion being the addiction, things get complicatd. the result is a performance-oriented spiritual life that knows nothing of the “rest for your soul” that Jesus described. I want to be clear that sometimes when you start pushing your beliefs on to others it can be offensive. I may believe that you are more of a religious addict than a man of truths, but that is just my BELIEF, It is not fair to anyone for me to ever speak of my belief as a truth. So what im saying is that people should not just say what they think with no regards to the other person. I would never want to say what I think if it might offend someone, i will just keep it to myself because it is just a belief and in no way a proven truth. But this time i did just to show you that ones beliefs can be offensive to another. I do not want your religious ways pushed on me anymore. If I work on a Saturday that is my business, I dont need someone trying to make me feel guilty or wrong for my actions and beliefs. What I do in my own religious efforts is for me to decide and God to judge. Personally, I think your a great guy, nice, respectful, good hearted, good morals, honest and you seem to have awesome life principals. I really really like you as a person and hope that this doesn’t offend you to the point where you tell yourself “He’s the Devil” or something like that (common symptom of religious addiction). My point is not to tell you that you are wrong, because i am not the judge. my point is not to offend you in retaliation for offending me, but to show how disregard can lead to offending others. I hope this doesnt make things unfriendly because I like you for who you are, not based on your religion. I hope you can see it that way to because our practices will not be the same.
July 10, 2011 at 3:04 am |
Brother, thanks for your heartfelt comments. I can see we are “miles” apart in our beliefs. That being said, and because it’s quite obvious you don’t really want to know more about the God of Israel, and His Holy Laws, I’ll leave it at that. But feel free to enjoy future posts and you are ALWAYS welcomed!
July 14, 2011 at 2:42 am |
Here are a couple passages of Scripture to keep in mind when considering these issues of whether it’s okay to do something that goes against the law…
“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Prov. 14:12
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jer. 17:9
July 14, 2011 at 3:54 am |
Yes, those are good ones. Thanks Todd