Today, I have to admit I started the day overwhelmed, returning from the Thanksgiving holiday and preparing for a short Christmas season. There is much to do and to get done. Lists to create and check off. You can relate, right? But lists are a good thing because they help us prioritize and remind us of which things to do first. They keep the various segments of our life in order and free our minds to get the various tasks done. When I told my aunt over Thanksgiving that my memory was slipping as I get older, she quickly said, "I make lists so I don't have to remember."
On that note, I decided to stop all my own vain efforts and begin my day fresh with meditation and prayer. I stepped over the laundry piles and closed the door on suitcases still waiting to be emptied. Pouring a fresh cup of coffee, I opened my Bible at random. There in the Word, staring at me plain as day, was Exodus 20:1-17. The most powerful list we were ever given. The Ten Commandments.
Tears of conviction came to my eyes as I read the most important reminders we could ever receive — even more applicable during this Christmas season, when we constantly have to keep at the mental forefront the true meaning of the season – God's ultimate gift of love and sacrifice – sending His son who died for our sins and was raised up as our Lord and Saviour.
I found myself asking: where am I putting idols of pride and seasonal gluttony before godly discipline and self-control, and what am I coveting that is getting between me and God? Fancy Christmas decorations? Gifts that are more lavish than we can afford? Items for me when so many non-profits are asking for donations?
God gave us the following list so that we would remember His priorities for our lives.
Exodus 20:1-17 (NKJV)
1. And God spoke all these words, saying:
2. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3. You shall have no other gods before Me.
4. You shall not make for yourself a carved image — 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;
5. you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6. but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
7. You shall not take the name of the Lord you God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
8. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10. but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work; you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle. nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
12. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
13. You shall not murder.
14. You shall not commit adultery.
15. You shall not steal.
16. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey; nor anything that is your neighbor's."
Now that is a list! Enjoy the freedom this season that comes from sticking to the list!
