Good Morning Garden

THE SECOND COMMANDMENT

Read Exodus 20:4-6.

Thou shalt not take unto thee any graven image…(exodus 20:4).

A primitive people needed to be thus instructed because they were much given to making idols of a palpable sort. We do not do these things, but whenever we give power to anything but God, we are making that thing into a graven image. For example, we give power to ailments, particularly if it is a favorite ailment. We all know people who say, “My rheumatism,” and they say it quite lovingly. Been with them a long time! Has become a conversation piece! Others say, “My indigestion.” We are making a graven image of these things. It is only when we take power away from them that we can heal them.

If you forget God and worship graven images of any kind, you are going to suffer. You can demolish a stone statue; you can burn a wooden one. The way to destroy mental images is to stop thinking of them and giving them power.

This commandment goes on to say, “For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.” Moses does not mean that God is jealous like a man, but that God must have first place. The trouble with many pious people is that they want God to be vice-president, keeping the presidency for themselves. So the Bible uses the word “jealous” in the sense that if you give power to anything but God, you have lost God altogether. You cannot have a percentage of God. Either God is the only power or nothing at all.

Yesterday we spoke of the “me” as the most likely false God in our lives. Today we speak of graven and mental images that can divert our focus from the true God. This is more subtle and complex than the elevation of self and therefore more difficult to identify and overcome. Situational images such as status, power, wealth and position can quickly become the goal rather than a means to achieve a goal. Possessions often enslave us to a form of worship while vanity, pride and ego are human characteristics that take us away from communion with and worship of God. And yes, even ailments and mindsets can become the object of our attention and focus. “I can’t do that…its impossible…my infirmities are too great…I am too weak…I don’t want to do that…its not fair” are all phrases that reflect mental or attitudinal images which deny the omnipotence and power of God in our lives.

Affirming God,
Z gardener

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THE FIRST COMMANDMENT

I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me (Exodus 20:2,3).

Moses lived in Egypt over three thousand years ago, and he led some six hundred thousand people out of Egypt and through the wilderness. That is historical. But, Moses also stands for a faculty in yourself, and the things that Moses did typify your state of mind.

The mountain means prayer—the elevated consciousness. We are told that the general public were not allowed to go up Mount Sinai, but that does not mean that certain people were not good enough to go up. It means that if we want to go up the mountain—if we want to raise our consciousness, if we want to get closer to God—we must prepare ourselves by prayer. If we want to go up the mountain, we have to become a high priest spiritually and we must rid ourselves of our faults and weaknesses—otherwise we cannot elevate our consciousness and get our contact with God.

Moses had his revelation, and then he realized it as the experience that God and man are one. When he got that revelation, Moses brought back the laws of life, beginning with the First Commandment, as we call it..

What is the beginning of the First Commandment? I am the Lord thy God. Our trouble in our religious life nearly always is that we think, “In the beginning Me.” That is very human but is does not get us the revelation that Moses got. After affirming I am the Lord thy God… the First Commandment says thou shalt have no other gods before me.

The God that we most often put before the true God is the God called “me”. It is the self that most often replaces God as a false idol in our lives. When we learn to lay down the self and replace it with God, then we are truly putting God first, and putting no other Gods before the true God. When we replace the “me” with the “we”, the self with the selfless and the “I” with the “Thy”, we will be following the first commandment.

Putting God first,
Z gardener

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Read Exodus 19:6-20:20.

Moses was a man of extraordinary understanding of God and of man. He was also one of the great historical leaders of the human race. He was born in Egypt, which was in those days the most highly civilized country in the world. But at the time, the authorities gave orders to kill the male children of the Israelites, and Moses’ mother tried to save his life by placing him in a little basket and hiding it at the river’s edge where Pharaoh’s daughter could not help but see it when she came to the river to bathe. The sister of Moses was told to hide among the tall reeds to guard the baby. The king’s daughter saw this little basket, opened it, and when the child cried, her heart was touched. She looked around, and out came the sister, and you know the rest of the story, how the sister was sent to fetch a woman to take care of the child, and brought Moses’ own mother.

Now there is a remarkable text here. Pharaoh’s daughter says to the woman:

Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages
(Exodus 2:9).

In the Bible sense you are the King’s Daughters as soon as you reach out for the Truth. The infant Moses is that higher teaching that draws out your heart. Now, how do we nourish our infant Moses? By prayer and meditation. Otherwise the child will starve. However, if we take the child and nurse it, we shall get our wages,and our wages shall be freedom, peace of mind, harmony, understanding, and the fellowship of God Himself.

From this we learn that merely accepting and embracing the truth are not enough. We must nurture, feed and grow the truth in our lives, hearts and minds. Along with prayer and meditation we must also act to ensure the health and strength of the truth. Just as we must cultivate a garden with work such a digging, fertilizing, pruning, weeding and watering, so we must act on the truth. When we do, we will find our gardens filled with beauty, safety, peace and plenty. The wages of nourishing the truth is life.

Z gardener

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