Ten Commandments: What Do You Live For?
Reverend Fred Klett, CHAIM Ministry

"Everybody has something in life he treasures more than anything else."

Everyone has something he lives for. What has the controlling influence over your life? Where is your heart's commitment? What you love above all else is what you, in reality, bow down before in your life. Even atheists bow down before something!

In America today, the pursuit of prosperity is much in focus. Sometimes this is for a higher cause, or providing for one's family, or simply for the sake of pleasure. A bumper sticker I've seen on cars says: "Whoever dies with the most toys wins." Some people live for sex or to get high on drugs. Many serve only themselves....

There are good things that have some value ... some live for family, children, community, heritage, or patriotism. Some live for artistic expression, others for a political or social cause. But nothing in this life is eternal. Even high ideas and things, when made supreme in our minds, will ultimately bring disappointment.

How many have died for an idea! Anything we make into a false god ends up in corruption. For example, government is a good and necessary thing, but governments often try to take G-d's place. The true G-d is all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful, and there is no rule superior to him. He provides everything we have. When a government tries to become all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful, when it tells people that it can provide all their needs, then it imagines that there are no eternal truths above it. What terrible tyranny is the result! Every system and dictator that tries to do what only G-d can do becomes a tool of Satan.

Nothing other than the living G-d can truly satisfy us. My friends, we have a gap in our souls we all try to fill, but that hole can only be filled by our Creator himself.

G-d's commandments were given for our good. They make us aware of this gap. The first of the Ten commandments tells us "I am the LORD your G-d who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, you shall have no other gods besides me." The holiest confession in the Law of Moses, states: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our G-d, the LORD alone." Israel was told "Love the LORD your G-d with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength." G-d doesn't need us, but we need Him. We need to serve and honor him.

The commandment is to honor and serve the true Creator G-d alone, and not to serve any other gods. This is the only ideal sufficient to give our lives real meaning and direction. Why? Because it is eternal, because it is uniquely true, and because it is the reason we were created. Anything else is destined to fail us.

This commandment also tells us why we should live only for G-d. G-d is worthy because of who he is and what he has done for us. He made us and therefore He has supreme rights over us.

In the Torah we read how G-d brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and into freedom. This freedom allowed them to serve the true G-d instead of the gods of Egypt. Dear reader, G-d has also brought you into whatever good you have today. But each of us still experiences a sort of slavery. The ancient Israelites suffered under the evil Egyptian king. We suffer because of the mastery of evil and sin within us. The result is that death will eventually defeats us. As a Christian, I believe G-d sent the ultimate king of Israel, Jesus, to come and die for our sins and rise again. If we trust in G-d's plan, G-d promises us eternal life in close fellowship with him.

G-d made us. He delivered his people from Egypt, and he will rescue everyone who believes in Him from slavery. The pleasures of this life, money, family, sex, idealism, art, all have their proper places. But a life lived only for G-d brings a joy greater than any other!

(Reklama i Zheezn, December 13, 2000, Philadelphia)