Journey to the Cross

Pause

Take a moment to think about how you are expressing your love and praise to God. What difference does your being a child of God make in the way you live your life together with God and others?

Listen

Then God spoke all these words:

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

You must have no other gods before me.

Do not make an idol for yourself—no form whatsoever—of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow down to them or worship them, because I, the Lord your God, am a passionate God. I punish children for their parents’ sins even to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But I am loyal and gracious to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Exodus 20:1-6

Think

In this passage, God speaks! God speaks to the people saying, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” For the previous 400 years the Hebrew people had been captives, knowing lesser lives than God wanted for them. They were probably worried that things would always be the same. But the God who created the sky, the earth, and the waters wanted them to be free, so God created the change they needed! The one true God would be their God “to the thousandth generation” if they would forget other images or gods they might worship instead. To be together with God as God’s worshiping people, this saving and creating God must be their only God. They must choose.

What choices do you make that involve God? What choices do you make without God? Do you have idols or things that you allow to replace God in your life?

God saves us! How will we show our thankful praise?

David Haun

Pray

Saving God, I need you to rescue me from my thoughts and actions that make me less than you intend. I confess that I need you. I trust your Holy Spirit to move and shape my life. You are my God, and you are faithful to save. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

Go

Go, led by the Holy Spirit, making way for God to be first with you always and your neighbor to be second, answering God’s saving love with your life, meeting the miracle of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ with the gift of your honor-filled worship, both day and night, wherever you are, forever. Amen.