As a child in Sunday school class, I can remember doing lessons on the Ten Commandments. We memorized them and the order in which they were presented and for this Enneagram 1, I loved having a clear set of rules to follow. When Justin mentioned he would be preaching through them this year, I was excited to get a fresh perspective on what has forever been the rules in my head, that I daily fail to live up to.

This week we looked at the First Commandment, found in Exodus 20:1-3. Justin explained that instead of the term commandments, these are meant to be read as ten words from the Lord to His people. God in giving these words, has bound Himself to His creation, His people, and promises to see it through to completion. And knowing that God doesn’t just throw these out and leave us to fend for ourselves is comforting to a wayward and wandering people. God binding himself to us, helps us view these words through the right lens. God’s relationship with His people, helps us understand God better. We cannot keep these rules on our own, only in right relationship with God, in His promise to be with us, can we live these out rightly.

As the hymn “Come Thou Fount” says, “Bind my wandering heart to thee”. The ten words were given by God to Moses for the people delivered from Egypt, who were wandering in the desert. God is binding Himself to this wandering people as a Father does to a Son. God has called His people to image Himself to the world, and when we obey these ten words from the Lord, we do just that.

That was the convicting question I wrestled with from this Sunday’s sermon- Do I image God to a broken world? And truthfully, that feels like a weighty call, a responsibility I am not sure I want. But, if God has bound Himself to me, and I am truly His, He is making me new, and the pressure is off. I can’t keep these commandments on my own, but God strengthens me daily to reflect Himself back to the world. “The World” seems like such a big undertaking, but I forget my world looks like reflecting Jesus to my kids, my neighbors, my family, those I disagree with, those I sit next to each Sunday. It can be tempting to get caught up in the current cultural climate of our day- whether it is the pandemic, political division, etc. We have lost sight of the bigger picture. Our daily call is to follow Jesus and to image Him to a fallen world. I pray that this year our church would be marked by this calling because we have been bound to God, because He is our Good Shepard, and spurring each other on towards this call is so much sweeter than our differences.

~Bronwyn Siebert