Commandments

I love going to a farmers’ market to see the cornucopia of produce available to us for consumption. The profusion of apples, tomatoes, squashes, green vegetables … there is no end to the bounty that is available to us from the farmers’ fields.

Several years ago we were in Abingdon, Virginia and went to the Farmers’ Market there. Here is a sample of the goodies that they had (some of which we purchased).

Abingdon farmers market 2 — Farmer’s market in Abingdon, Virginia.

While we were in Abingdon, we also went to another vendor of fine edibles, the Abingdon vineyard and winery. It was in October, so the vines were dormant and they were certainly not a picture of lush green vines. But the prospect of fine wine in the future was evident by the care and tending of the vines, even in the winter.

Abingdon winery outside 5 — Vineyard during the October rest in winter, tended and cared for by the vinedresser.

But, all was not gray at the winery! God’s beauty was evident in the colors that graced the surrounding landscape.

Abingdon winery outside 7 — Shrubs in their colorful finery at Abingdon Winery during October.

However, back to the farmers’ market. Knoxville has a large farmers’ market that is in multiple locations around town. While I enjoy going to see what is available, another market that I enjoy visiting is the farm store at Carver’s Orchard in Newport, Tennessee.

Carvers orchard 10-2016 - even more apples — Wide variety of apples at Carver’s Orchard in Newport, Tennessee.

Bushel baskets of apples adorn the floors and tables of one side of the farm store, with pickles, jams, jellies, butters, honey, ciders and all sorts of other goodies in jars are along the walls. The orchard is huge and the number and type of apples available is staggering. They even have a chart of various apples showing when they will be harvested.

Carvers orchard 10-2016 - apple chart — Apple chart at Carver’s Orchard showing the type of apple and the timing of harvest.

If you turn to look at the other side of the farm store, you will find a variety of other produce some of which is grown at their farm while the rest is from other local farmers. For example, there will be tomatoes, Vidalia onions, pumpkins, potatoes (both white and sweet), gourds, etc.

Carvers orchard 10-2016 - tomatoes — Bounteous tomatoes available at the orchard farm store.

This is not meant to be an advertisement for any specific company or place. Rather, these pictures and comments are intended to shake us out of our apathy, out of our whining about inconveniences and problems, out of our misguided belief that the universe revolves around us or that all we see around us is the result of our work alone.

I fervently pray that the pictures will reawaken our gratitude to God for His great bounty bestowed upon our country. And I pray that we will remember the source of the bounty that farmers present on market day.

“You [God] cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.”

Psalm 104:14-15 ESV

I pray that we will honor the One who is the source of our very breath, who gives our bodies the strength for each heartbeat, who gives us the opportunity and ability to do our work, and who is the Lover of our souls.

“These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.”

Psalm 104:27-29 ESV

God’s blessings have been showered on our country for hundreds of years, and for a great many of those years we remembered that He is the source of the harvest. However, in more recent times, it appears that we have forgotten, both as a country and as individuals, that God is the One who provides His bounty for us.

When He is ignored, when we claim that all this came from our own labor, when we take the glory that is rightfully His and claim it for ourselves, we have replaced Him with idols of our own making. This, my beloved, is sin. It is rank disobedience and God will not continue blessing us if we continue in unrepentant sin.

The problem is that God is holy and He WILL NOT share worship with other gods. This is a problem that is as old as … well all the way back thousands of years when Israel would copy worship of the peoples around them, while still saying that they worshiped God. They were taken as captives and moved away from their land, and this was said about the experience:

“And this occurred because the people of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods…”

2 Kings 17:7 ESV

Scripture continues:

“The LORD made a covenant with them and commanded them, ‘You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them, but you shall fear the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm. You shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice. And the statutes and the rules and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to do. You shall not fear other gods, and you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods, but you shall fear the LORD your God, and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.’ “

2 Kings 17:35-39 ESV. But, the next verse makes an extraordinarily sad pronouncement:

“However, they would not listen, but they did according to their former manner.”

2 Kings 17:40 ESV

Fearing [reverencing], worshiping, and honoring God is neither a suggestion nor an option on the multiple choice test of life. It is a commandment, and it is a commandment that God takes very seriously.

Let us all examine ourselves and see if there is any sin in us;

if we have refused to give God the honor due His Name,
if we have ignored God’s commandments and have flaunted our freedom so that we have trampled on His Word,
if we, in our pride, have claimed to be the creator of our own abundance,
if we have refused to repent when the Spirit has convicted us of our sin,
if we have given lip service to the worship of God while we, at the same time, worship other gods such as money, fame, family, position, ___you fill in the blank____!

Scripture tells us that there is a remedy to this situation – there is hope that God will continue to bless us. In Second Chronicles we read:

“if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV

It is not too late – if we as His people will humble ourselves in prayer and repent and seek Him while we turn from sin and look to Him alone, God will hear us and will save us and heal both us and our land.

Father, enable us to see ourselves as You see us … then let us flee to the cross of Your Son and repent of our sin so that His righteousness can be imputed to us and we can live in the light of Your grace. Then, I pray that you would heal our land.

Love is a hot topic in our world every day. We speak of “falling in love” or “having lost my love” as if love is something that just happens, whether we want it to or not. While the concept of marriage is under incredible attack in today’s world, love is still a hot topic.

We read in the tabloids of love between two people and then, one paragraph later, we read of the separation of two others. We celebrate the many years of marriage of one couple while we are hurting for another couple going through separation and dissolution of their marriage

Then, too, as parents, we love our children. And, as adults, we love our children and their children, and we love our parents, and miss them when they are gone.

Alice, Harold and Linda (C) — My Mother and Father reading my Golden Book, circa 1950

And, if we look carefully, there even are times when our children love each other!

USED Brother and Sister — Siblings showing affection, at least one is!

USED Brother and infant sister (C) — Brother giving baby sister some “love”.

While the children may not be as demonstrative as they get older, loving sibling relationships are precious.

We say that we love flowers.

USED Flower garden — Beautiful flower garden.

We love food.

Chocolate covered strawberries — Anyone for some chocolate covered strawberries!

We love to travel and take vacations, like a cruise going to faraway places in style.

USED Grandeur of the Seas Cruise Ship — The Grandeur of the Seas cruise ship in the Royal Caribbean fleet, seen from a distance.

And, it goes without saying, we love our pets.

USED Skipy hiding under the bed — Skippy, our Lhasa Poo, peeking out from under the bed, gave us 18 blessed years..

USED Goldie on sofa in rv — One of our retired racing greyhounds, Gold E Locks, otherwise known as Goldie, graced us with her presence for 11 years. She loved riding on the sofa in the RV.

And now we have our two canine MinPin daughters, Snickers and Cuddles.

USED Snickers wishing camera flash would stop — Snickers in dreamland on her favorite blanket.

USED Cuddles and her boy (C) — Our grandson and Cuddles, sound asleep, with just a little doggie grin, next to him, because he is “her boy!”

Our love for people, animals, objects and activities is a love that is conditioned on various factors. We love those related to us in a different way than we do our generalized acquaintances. We love some flowers and not others, and some like to eat lobster and others wouldn’t touch it! In other words, there is self-motivated volition involved in our love of things and others.

In stark contrast, this is not how we are to love our God. We are COMMANDED to love the Lord our God, and not just a little bit or for a limited time!

In Deuteronomy 6:5 we read:

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

That essentially covers everything! It is repeated elsewhere in the Old Testament, for example: Deuteronomy 11:1 and 13:3, and Joshua 22:5.

We cannot shrug our shoulders and mumble, “Yeah, but that was okay thousands of years ago, not for us 2016!” Rather, Jesus reiterated that this was still a commandment for us in Matthew 22:37 when He repeated these exact words. But Jesus didn’t stop there — not only are we to follow the command in Deuteronomy, Jesus expanded it in Mark 12:29-31 by commanding us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Jesus takes love out of the mental/spiritual world and puts it into the physical/material world. This turns love into action, not just thought or emotion. We see our neighbor and we are to love him/her.

Loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves means to serve others as Jesus Christ exampled for us, as He lived, and as He died in complete obedience to His Father. We surely cannot live a sinless life and comply with God’s will in all things as He did, but we can keep His commands on a day to day basis as we are enabled by the Spirit. We can love God; we can read His Word; we can meet with fellow believers and worship Him regularly; we can love others, if for no other reason than because He tells us to do so.

Note that our obligation to love our neighbor does not depend on whether the neighbor is either lovely or loveable – it is a command to Jesus’ followers that has no qualification as to the one being loved. It is between us and the Lord. “If you love me, keep my commands.” John 14:15.

There is no wriggle room. It is an “if … then” statement. If you love me, then you will keep my commands. Or, stated another way, if you do not keep my commands, then you do not love me.

This is not optional – it is not a suggestion. It is a direct command that indicates whether

I do or do not love my Lord and Savior,
I will or will not allow His Spirit to guide my steps through the day,
I will or will not follow His direction.

If I say that I am His, do my actions support my statement or do they undermine it?

What about you? Prayerfully consider these questions and seek the Lord’s face as you look at your life, your speech, your actions, your thoughts, your motives, etc.

“If you love me, keep my commands.” Am I one of His disciples or not? Are you?

Everything depends on the answer to that question!

Father, I pray that the meditation of my heart is acceptable to you this day. I pray that your Word would be used by the Spirit to illuminate the hearts of those who do not know You. I pray that you would forgive me when I have failed to love You with my whole heart, soul and might. Thank you for calling me to Yourself through the atoning work of your Son, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.