“The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul;
the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.” Psalms 19:7-11
Tag Archives: God’s commandments
TEN COMMANDMENTS: A PATH TO TRUE FREEDOM
The Ten Commandments: A Path to True Freedom by Christian Kahnt.
A Loving Gift, not a Restriction
The Ten Commandments were given by God as an expression of His love for humanity. Like a parent https://youtu.be/NWcKMQqAZ9Y?si=X0r9k_P6weov5diqgiving guidance to a child, these commands are designed to protect us, bless us, and keep us from harm. They are road signs on life’s journey, pointing us away from danger and toward a life of peace and fulfillment.
2. Freedom Through Boundaries
True freedom isn’t about doing whatever we feel like – it’s about living without the weight of guilt, broken relationships, or consequences that harm ourselves and others. The Ten Commandments show us how to live in harmony with God, others, and even our own hearts. They free us from the chaos that comes when we disregard what is good and right.
3. A Blueprint for Relationships
The Commandments focus on two essential relationships:
- Loving God (the first four Commandments): They teach us to honour and connect with the One who made us.
- Loving others (the last six Commandments): They guide us in building healthy, respectful relationships with the people around us.
Jesus Himself summed this up when He said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind” and “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–39).
4. Protecting What Matters Most
Each Commandment isn’t just a prohibition but a safeguard for something precious:
- “You shall have no other gods before Me”: Keeps our hearts anchored in what is eternal and unchanging, rather than fleeting pursuits.
- “You shall not make idols”: Protects us from investing in false hopes that will ultimately disappoint.
- “Do not misuse God’s name”: Calls us to honour God in our words and actions.
- “Remember the Sabbath”: Encourages rest, reflection, and restoration in a fast-paced world.
- “Honor your father and mother”: Instils respect for family and wisdom.
- “Do not murder”: Safeguards life and peace in our communities.
- “Do not commit adultery”: Protects trust and love in relationships.
- “Do not steal”: Upholds fairness and integrity.
- “Do not lie”: Builds trust and truthfulness.
- “Do not covet”: Promotes contentment and gratitude.
5. A Path to Flourishing
Far from being a heavy burden, the Ten Commandments are a path to flourishing. They invite us to live as God designed us to live—in harmony with Him, with others, and with ourselves. When we follow them, we experience peace, joy, and a deeper sense of purpose.
The Gospel and the Commandments
The Commandments show us God’s standard for holy living, but they also reveal our inability to meet that standard on our own. This is where the gospel shines brightest.
Jesus fulfilled the law perfectly on our behalf. Through His life, death, and resurrection, He offers us forgiveness for our failures and the power to live transformed lives. In Christ, the Commandments are not burdens but blessings. We obey not to earn God’s love, but because we’ve already received it.
Sharing the Good News
As we reflect on the Ten Commandments, let’s embrace them as a positive, life-giving framework. Share this perspective with those around you – on social media, in conversations, and in prayer groups. Remind others that God’s commands aren’t about restriction but about love, protection, and freedom.
By choosing to live within the wisdom of God’s guidelines, we step into the abundant life He desires for us – a life marked by love, peace, and true freedom.
Pastor Christian Kahnt is the Assistant Pastor at the Parramatta Christian Church NSW Australia
DO YOU WANT GOD’S BLESSINGS OR CURSES?
The living God says, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). He offers us true life and, with it, blessing. But He warns us against sin and the curse that always comes with it. Just as He did in the Garden, God offers us the quality of life that comes from obeying Him. God says, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live” (Proverbs 4:4).
There are many reasons to obey what God commands us in Scripture. Here are five of them:
1) God, your Creator, said it.
2) God knows better than we do.
3) God is in charge, and we are not.
4) Whenever I have obeyed God, I and my family have ultimately benefited.
5) Whenever I have done it my way instead of God’s, with all my rationalizations and excuses, it hasn’t been for His glory, for my good, or the good of others. To obey God is always in our ultimate self-interest. In a universe where God sets up the rules, what is right is also smart.
Finally, we should remember that God gives us the power and strength to obey Him. Jesus made it possible for our Heavenly Father to send the third person of the Trinity to be our helper, our counsellor, our teacher, and our comforter. The Holy Spirit makes it possible for our spirit to function as the lamp of the Lord as God always intended.
“The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts.” Proverbs 20:27
Scripture says we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to live in holiness.
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” Titus 2:12
We are fast approaching the time of Jesus second coming to Earth to fulfill the promises God made to the nation He established for His purposes, Israel.
“Thus says the Lord God: On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be rebuilt. And the land that was desolate shall be tilled, instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. And they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.’ Then the nations that are left all around you shall know that I am the Lord; I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.” Ezekiel 36:33-36
CONSEQUENCES OF REJECTING GOD AND HIS LAWS
Transgender woman Roxanne Tickle has won a novel gender identity case brought against a women’s-only social media app and its owner after she was excluded from the platform. Federal Court Justice Robert Bromwich found Giggle for Girls and its owner Sall Grover had “indirectly discriminated” against Ms Tickle and ordered her to pay the applicant $10,000 and her legal costs.
Justice Bromwich said. He also found that “sex is changeable” after Ms Grover argued it was not. Ms. Tickle, who underwent gender-affirming surgery in 2019 and is now designated as female on her birth certificate, claims she was discriminated against on the grounds of gender identity by Giggle for Girls and Ms Grover when she was excluded from the women’s networking app.
It is the first time a case alleging gender identity discrimination has been heard by the Federal Court following changes to the Sex Discrimination Act in 2013, which made it unlawful to discriminate against a person based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or intersex status.
This predicament is the largely unanticipated outcome of Gillard-era changes to the Sex Discrimination Act to include “gender identity” as a ground for claiming unlawful discrimination. This was defined as “the gender-related identity, appearance or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of a person (whether by medical intervention or not), with or without regard to the person’s designated sex at birth”.
If last week’s Federal Court decision between Roxanne Tickle and Sall Grover goes unchallenged, then officially sex is no longer anchored in biology, at least for the purposes of the federal Sex Discrimination Act.
Tickle is still a biological male with X & Y chromosomes no surgery can change his biological makeup.
GOD ESTABLISHED THE ROLES FOR MEN & WOMEN
A great article appeared in The Washington Stand by Joshua Arnold: Lead, Provide, Protect: An Urgent Call for Godly Men. I have taken excerpts from it
Lead, provide, protect. That’s what God created men to do. Our society has other ideas, to its own disadvantage and disgrace. But the best counter to the culture is for men to step up and embrace their God-given identity and role.
Today, “boys are penalized … for being boys,” Owen Strachan, senior fellow for Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, declared on “Washington Watch” last week. “Boys hear, ‘Don’t be strong’ and ‘Don’t want to be … a traditional man. … You’re not really good the way you are as a boy. You should be more like a girl.’ … Nothing could be worse for boys than that.”
This propaganda — blasted out by every mainstream institution from schools to Hollywood — applies half a century of radical feminist ideology. Radical feminists of the late 20th century argued for abolishing all differences between men and women. They demanded absolute equality in the academy and the workplace. They demanded utter sexual libertinism, endorsing promiscuity, childlessness, and the dissolution of the marriage bond, in imitation of their mistaken caricature of masculinity. They demanded freedom from their own reproductive biology (through birth control and abortion), again in an attempt to reproduce a false version of masculinity.
Ironically, as radical feminists tried to become like men in every way, they also insisted that men become more like women. “There are all sorts of traits associated with good things in Scripture that in today’s culture — among woke, leftist, pagan thought — are very bad things,” said Strachan. “So, if you take risks today if you’re assertive if you speak up in groups if you might dare to ever correct a woman in public … if you like competitive sports, if you like watching World War II movies, you better get out your blanket and hide in the closet because they’re coming for you.” This attitude nurtures men “against their nature,” he added, “against their wiring, because now they’re being told, ‘Don’t be what you naturally want to be.”
Because of his death on the cross, we who believe in him are redeemed from the futility of our dead works and restored to a right relationship with God. In his sacrificial example, we have a model to imitate (1 Corinthians 11:1), especially those of us who are husbands (Ephesians 5:25). “Our ability to fulfill our God-given responsibilities as men is not because of virtue within us,” said Strachan, but “because of God’s grace in us that summons us to wake up and to be not just a man for ourselves, not just an adult in terms of age, but to be a man who lays down his life for others to whatever extent is necessary.”
Lead, provide, protect. This is what God designed me to do, and it’s more necessary than ever in our fallen, messed-up world. It’s especially important for families, the building blocks of society. “If you build fathers, you build the family and you build the society,” Strachan stated. “If you break fathers, you break the family. If you break the family, you break the society.”
Lead, provide, protect. That’s the role of a godly man. The world has always sought to tear down, trip up, or otherwise neutralize godly leaders, and that’s especially true of our culture, which has embraced an anti-biblical, anti-masculine ideology. “Of course, a Christian is going to say, ‘You’re only going to be truly strong when you recognize your weakness and your need for Jesus Christ,’” Strachan granted. “Nonetheless, in Scripture, in case after case, (David to Solomon or the Lord God to Joshua), there’s a call to courage, and there’s a call to strength, and that is what boys need.”
We need men who, in the face of worldly opposition and devilish temptation, will heed this call:
“Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord your God” 1 Kings 2:2-3
GOD’S INTENT FOR THE CHURCH
God’s intent for the Church has always been that it be a place where lost people get found and the broken get put back together — a place filled with “weres” who are learning to build new lives through the power of the Holy Spirit.
It’s time for surveys to tell us that churches are breaking new ground and being filled with those from broken families, broken relationships, and broken lives. But they should also tell us churches are doing all they can to break the downward cycle of family dysfunction and restore health to marriage and fatherhood. Only then can people step into the life God has for them, and only then can they be part of God’s heart for breaking new ground through the power of the Gospel.
“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes …” (Romans 1:16).
In Paul’s first letter to the church in Thessalonica, he reminded them they had “turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God …” (I Thessalonians 1:9). When he took the Gospel to the city of Ephesus, many who engaged in sorcery and pagan worship left their ways to follow Jesus (Acts 19: 19, 23-27). The survey question, “How many of you came from families that practiced sorcery and idolatry?” Would have had embarrassing results. Yet Heaven was smiling as new ground was being broken.
But the city of Corinth tops them all: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor those habitually drunk, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the Kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (I Corinthians 6:9-11). That must have been quite a congregation! New ground was being broken.
“Churches must work to restore healthy marriages and fatherhood to combat a growing decline in Christianity, according to a survey released by a faith-based group.” The article went on to detail how the decline in resident fatherhood and the collapse of marriage are likely explanations for the increase in religious non-affiliation throughout the United States.
God’s roles for males and females need to be restored. Male leadership in the home and church is clearly laid out in God’s Word but it like most of God’s commandments has been jettisoned by an unbelieving world. Fortunately, God tells us in His Word that this would be the case and the only solution is for Jesus to return and restore righteousness by ruling and reigning the nations with a rod of iron, and this He will do for 1000 years with the resurrected Saints. Jesus’ Millennial Kingdom is a transition period prior to God establishing a new Heaven and new Earth where only the righteous dwell. Whilst Satan is bound for most of the thousand years. In the end, God allows him to be released and astoundingly he is still able to raise an army of rebellious people like the sand of the sea to come against Jesus and the Saints. The rebellion is promptly put down and this earth and heaven are destroyed. A second resurrection occurs of those unbelievers who were not raised at the first resurrection and all those who died during the Millennium. Jesus White Throne judgement follows. Only then does John see a new Heaven and a new Earth and a magnificent New Jerusalem descending from Heaven onto the new Earth.
A GOOD REASON TO MARRY
The decline of marriage over the last several decades is causing the decline in happiness or at least most of it. As Sam Peltzman, lead researcher behind the University of Chicago paper told The Atlantic in statistical hyperbole: “The only happy people for 50 years have been married people.”
After all, marriage is God’s design for man, woman, and family.
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24
Olga Khazan, who wrote the Atlantic piece and has been cohabiting with her partner for 15 years, says these stats also struck her as counterintuitive. However, she then admits that “this is a fairly consistent finding dating back decades in social-science research: Married people are happier. Period.”
Of course, happiness isn’t the sole or even the best reason to get married. Many things in life carry deep meaning and significance that don’t necessarily make us happy. A life lived only for happiness is a futile “chasing after the wind.” Enduring suffering, overcoming trials and tragedy, or sacrificing time, energy, or even our lives for others are all richly worthwhile pursuits that yield rewards in eternity. Certainly, loving someone and raising godly children is worth it, even if it’s not always fun.
And we should note, that “happiness” is a malleable word. When survey participants say being married or having children made them “happy,” they may often mean that these permanent connections give them lasting joy, something more profound than fleeting happiness, which surveys seldom quantify.
Still, these consistently stark results are unmistakable. They should challenge the entire way of thinking in sitcoms, movies, and editorials. Marriage is one of the chief sources of well-being and satisfaction in life. The fact that marriage rates have declined so dramatically over the last 50 years has had real, population-wide consequences.
Because the reasons people are not marrying at the same rates are so complex, different solutions will be required to raise the marriage rate. According to Wilcox and Bass, one of the most important reasons is the fact that, for many Americans who are living together and may already have children, getting married incurs a tax “penalty.” The federal government needs to, in their words, stop “making marriage a bad financial bet for lower-income families.”
That would be a good start. Ultimately, however, our bad laws are reinforced by a low view of marriage that has infected hearts and minds via entertainment, media, culture, and individual choices. We have a worldview problem, which has led to a conflict between the values and priorities of millions of people and the way they were actually created to live.
Marriage is part of God’s plan for humanity and for His creation. No other human institution forges such lasting and consequential bonds. So, it should surprise no one — least of all Christians — that our nation’s 50-year experiment with alternatives to marriage has left huge numbers of people deeply unhappy. Repent and get back into a relationship with your Heavenly Father through the sacrifice Jesus made our your behalf.
” Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.“ John 14:6
GREAT TO SEE A LOT OF YOUNG PEOPLE SUPPORTING GOD’S COMMANDMENTS
PRO-LIFE ADVOCATES ATTEND THE ANNUAL MARCH FOR LIFE IN WASHINGTON ON JAN. 21, 2022
Nearly seven months since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion to the individual state legislatures, tens of thousands of anti-abortion activists will descend on Washington, D.C., for the 50th annual March for Life on Jan. 21.
Since Roe‘s overturning, 24 states have banned abortion or are likely to do so, according to a January 2023 report by the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank that supports abortion rights. Legal challenges are pending in several of those states.
On Jan. 11, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a pair of symbolic anti-abortion bills that are not expected to be acted upon in the Democratic-controlled Senate. One of the bills, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, would require health care providers to care for infants born after an attempted abortion. A 2002 federal law already mandates that health care professionals provide medical care to infants born at any gestational age.
Mancini called the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act “commonsense and compassionate.”
In October, she also described as “sensible and compassionate” a bill that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, sponsored to ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Other antiabortion leaders supported the legislation even though congressional Republicans distanced themselves from it.
Democrats seized upon Graham’s bill to portray the GOP as extremist on the issue, a strategy that seemed to resonate with voters. The Democrats increased their majority in the U.S. Senate while Republicans underperformed in securing the House with a slim majority.
Meanwhile, voters in Michigan, California and Vermont in November chose to enshrine abortion rights in their state constitutions. In Kentucky and Kansas, voters rejected constitutional amendments that would have said residents in those states had no right to an abortion.
“It seems to me we’re discovering that voters are generally in the middle” on abortion, said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California Davis School of Law who is a leading historian on the abortion debate in the United States. In the middle? Sadly, what our Creator says on the issue is no longer relevant and therefore not a consideration. It is another sure “end times” sign.
AMERICAS CIVILISATION DECAY ACCELERATES
What does civilizational decay look like? On Wednesday afternoon, Americans received a major warning sign that their Republic is teetering on the brink. It came in the unlikely form of a Senate cloture vote — a rather obscure parliamentary procedure that sets up the final passage of a bill in the Senate. But it wasn’t just any cloture vote, and it’s not just any bill under consideration.
I’m talking about the so-called Respect for Marriage Act, it is anything but that if you accept marriage as defined by God, and it just moved one step closer to President Biden’s desk, where it will certainly be signed into law. It passed cloture by a vote of 62-37, as 12 Republican senators joined Senate Democrats to throw “people of faith under the bus” — and possibly into prison.
Whether you realize it or not, marriage is one the best indicators of the health and stability of a nation. Just like buildings societies demand a stable foundation. Without one, they will crumble and crash, leaving a wreckage of human suffering and misery in the ruins.
No matter how hard progressives try to deny it, marriage is the irreplaceable foundation for stable societies. Not just any “marriage” but one man joining with one woman in a permanent, monogamous, committed union and dedicated to caring for any offspring such a union may produce.
Patrick Brown, at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, put it clearly. He explains that:
“But the institution of marriage itself — in law, custom, and tradition — is intimately bound up with the act of creating and raising children. Marriage, at its core, is the social institution most fundamentally oriented towards procreation. It is God’s way, (he said societies way) of harnessing, binding, and supporting the relationship that creates a new life, and it gives the child produced from that union (and his or her parents) the best chance at a stable life.”
Why is marriage the bedrock of society? Because it is how humanity endures throughout the ages, just as God intended for it to be. Jesus, Himself reminds us of the inescapable gravity of marriage.
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Matthew 19:4-6
Now, Jesus is addressing divorce here, but the principle, which is that God-defined marriage is between one man and one woman for life, applies to the proposed redefinition of marriage that is now sailing through the United States Congress with the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act.” They are trying to separate “what God has joined together.”
If we start unraveling this thread, there is no telling where the stopping point may be. Well, we actually do have a stark and dark preview: “sex change” operations on teenagers at top hospitals around the country, “kid-friendly” drag shows in your small town, and the rise of the acceptance of pedophilia. When you cut the brakes on God’s design for human sexuality and flourishing you can soon expect to fly off the cliff and crash into hell.
Lest I conclude on such a dark note, join me in remembering that just as human history began with a marriage so too it ends with a marriage. The arc of redemption stretches from Genesis 2:21-25, the marriage of Adam and Eve, to Revelation 19:6-9, the “marriage supper of the Lamb,” that is, of Christ and the Church. The Senate, the Democrats, and worthless Republicans may prevail against the definition of marriage and our religious liberty here in America, but God has guaranteed that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His church (Matthew 16:18)
However, the Bible reveals it will take Jesus’ return to this earth to restore sanity to the world. First, Jesus comes in the clouds to take His Saints to heaven, and then He pours out His wrath upon an unrepentant world with the Trumpet and Bowl judgements. The severity of God’s judgement is fierce. Below, I reveal what the Bible tells us about the first two trumpet judgements. The judgements escalate in intensity.
We need to warn our unbelieving family members and friends of what they are facing if they do not repent of their rebellion against God and His commandments. Show them how to ask God for His saving grace provided by Jesus. It is only by dying to self and becoming a new creature in Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit indwelling their spirit can they avoid God’s coming judgement.
The Seven Trumpets
“Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them. The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up. The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.“ Revelation 8:6-9
The above is a much-abbreviated version of the original article published at the Standing for Freedom Center. The last three paras. are mine.
The author William Wolfe served as a senior official in the Trump administration, both as a deputy assistant secretary of defense at the Pentagon and a director of legislative affairs at the State Department. Prior to his service in the administration, Wolfe worked for Heritage Action for America, and as a congressional staffer for three different members of Congress, including the former Rep. Dave Brat. He has a B.A. in history from Covenant College and is finishing his Master of Divinity at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
HUNGARY – A SHEEP NATION BY GOD’S STANDARD
Judgement of the nations
“Before Him (Jesus) will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He will place the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.” Matthew 25:32-33
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has won re-election, attributing his victory to the popularity of his “brand of Christian, conservative, patriotic politics. I am sure God was pleased with the stand for His values that Victor Orban took, and the fact that the majority of the people voted for him, puts Hungary in God’s sheep category from my viewpoint.
Orban addressed the influence of Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros and other forces in the election. “We had to fight the left at home, the Brussels bureaucrats, the international left, the Soros empire with all its money, and the international media” Orban stated. In the election, Hungarian voters also voted on several referendums related to LGBT issues. Voters overwhelmingly rejected ballot measures that would have allowed “sexual orientation sessions for minor children in public education without parental consent,” “the promotion of gender reassignment surgery for minors,” “the unrestricted introduction of sexual media content to minors” and “the display of gender-sensitive media content to minors.” More than 90% of Hungarians voted against adopting each policy proposal. Orban’s re-election follows closely the election of Katalin Novak, an Orban ally, to become the country’s first female president.
In 2020, the government passed an amendment to the country’s equivalent of a constitution, that recognizes marriage as an institution between one man and woman and bans same-sex couples from adopting children. Under the new policy, only married couples in a heterosexual relationship can adopt children. Previously, the Hungarian Parliament passed a measure defining gender as “biological sex based on primary sex characteristics and chromosomes.”
LIVING ETERNAL NOW 