Exodus 20

In Toon Town this weekend (the elementary room I serve in) a little girl showed me her Ten Commandments bookmark that her mother gave her to keep in her Bible. It's kind of a sweet thought to think of a little girl trying to learn those ten big laws, a few of which she probably can't even understand what it's requiring of her. If you ask the average church-goer to list the Ten Commandments, I bet you'll most likely get people who can list the last 5-6 but forget to include the first four. Or they roll a couple of the first four together.

In KONNECT we teach the Ten Commandments in two weeks. One week we do 1-4 that all show us how to relate to God and put Him first. On the second week we learn that 5-10 show us how to relate to other and put them ahead of ourselves. But really, I don't think memorization and clarification of the rules is our biggest obstacle in not living by them. I think it's that we don't fear Him like we should. I know I don't.

Don't get me wrong. I love God. I know He loves me. I want to honor Him with how I live my life and I want to obey Him unreservedly. But I don't think I really give Him the respect He deserves. Some people might think it's not a good idea to even bring this topic up so that we don't ruin people's image of a mericful God. But when I look around at our world, I don't think that's near as much of an issue as people blowing off His great power and awesome strength enough to fear Him. When we have a healthy recognition of what God is capable of, it will keep us from sin, just like this chapter tells us.

C.S. Lewis put it this way in his Chronicles of Narnia, "He's not a tame lion." He is good. He is kind. But He's still the Lion of Judah. So when I boldly and confidently approach His throne of grace, I don't want to forget who He is.