May 13, 2020
FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
THE FIRST OF ALL COMMANDMENTS
“Thou shall have no other gods before Me.” Exo. 20:2.
“Jehovah, the eternal, self-existent, uncreated One, Himself the Source and Sustainer of all, is alone entitled to supreme reverence and worship. Man is forbidden to give other object the FIRST place in his affections or in his service. Whatever we cherish that tends to LESSEN our love for God and INTERFERE with the service due Him, of that we do make a GOD.” E.G. White, Patriarchs & Prophets, p. 305.
“Since God has created man, in the nature of things the FIRST OF ALL RELATIONSHIPS is that to God: and the FIRST OF ALL DUTIES could be nothing but duty to God.”
“Suppose a time when there was only one intelligent creature in the universe. He was created: and the relationship to his Creator, his duty to his Creator, is the only one that could possibly be.”
“That is the FIRST of all relationships that can possibly be. Therefore it is written that:
“The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.’ Mark 12: 29-31.”
“All there is of any soul is FIRST due to God; because it all came from God. This, therefore, is THE FIRST OF ALL COMMANDMENTS, not because it is the first one ever given by spoken word, or that was ever written out; but because it is the first that could possibly be.”
“And this because it is the expression of the FIRST PRINCIPLE of the existence of any intelligent creature. The principle was there, inherent in the existence of the first intelligent creature, in the first moment of his existence, and there the principle abides eternally, unmodified and unfading.”A.T.Jones, Individuality in Religion, pp. 5-7.
Pray: Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me so that I can truly spiritually understand what it means to love God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength for I cannot worship Thee fully “in spirit and in truth” unless I know who Thou art—the One and Only God worthy of reverence and worship! Amen. NMF