When we study the Ten Commandments, it’s easy for us to fall back into the weeds of legalism, imagining that keeping these Laws is the way for us to be saved. Instead, any time we take an honest look at any of God’s Law, we should confront our sin and weakness, and thus our need for a Savior ever more clearly.

But there’s another error we can make – we can imagine that God’s Law is somehow harsh and punitive. Instead, Jesus said that love is the essence of all the law. Therefore, when we look today at the first four commandments, which tell us how God wants human beings to behave toward Him, we should understand these as the ways God wants us to express our love for Him.
And viewed from that angle, they make perfect sense. In fact, you wouldn’t have to be told to treat someone you love in any of these ways.

Take the fourth commandment, where we are told to observe the Sabbath day. Would you have to be told to take a day off so you could be with your sweetheart? Would you have to be told not to take any of your workplace business along on a date with him or her? Of course not – we don’t begrudge the time we spend with those whom we love the most. So, if God has loved us enough to give His Son to die for us, is it really too much for God to ask that we spend regular time with Him?

Or take the third commandment – where we are told not to misuse the name of God. Now, we would never dream of using our sweetheart’s name as a curse word. In fact, if we ever heard anyone else talking bad about our sweetheart, we’d give him something to talk about! So, why shouldn’t we treat God’s name with the reverence and devotion that He deserves?

And of course the first commandment makes sense – the idea that God doesn’t want us to share our affections with, or place our trust in, anyone or anything else. What would your sweetheart say if you were to announce that you wanted to marry her but have several mistresses at the same time? So, why should we be surprised when the second commandment says our God is jealous? Since He bought His people with the price of His Son’s lifeblood, doesn’t He have a right to our exclusive devotion?

But then there’s that other part of the second commandment – the idea that God doesn’t want us to use images of Him (or anything else for that matter) in worship. Perhaps that seems arbitrary or even silly to us. But think again about what worship is – the expression of how valuable or precious someone is to us. So, if your sweetheart didn’t like peanut butter and was allergic to chocolate, would you give him some Reese’s Pieces just because you like them? Would you take her for a romantic evening to the top of the Empire State Building if she were afraid of heights? Just so, if we really want to express our affection and reverence for God, shouldn’t we let Him decide how He wants us to do that? Worship is supposed to be a gift for Him, after all.

Yes, as Jesus said, it all starts with loving God with all we are and all we have. So let’s give all of our time, all of our words, and all of our hearts to Him today – in the way His Word says He wants us to.

Exodus 20:1-11 (KJV)

And God spake all these words, saying,
2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.