Be responsible for your people; don't be responsible for your people / 8

What is the law of God stated in the Ten Commandments?
You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below—you shall not bow down to them or worship them. You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. You shall not covet. (Exodus 20:3 & Deuteronomy 5:7) (from here)

Lord God Almighty, thank you for giving us these basic details of how we are to live, for making it sufficiently practical that we can figure out what it looks like in our different contexts and times. We must love you and not worship idols, nor use your name irreverently, and we are to pass a day each week intimately with you. We must love our neighbour by not doing to him things that we would hate - dishonouring our parents, murdering, cheating on our spouse, stealing, lying and slandering, envying what belongs to another. By these self-centered, self-serving deeds our society is undone. But by giving honour where it is due, by not reacting to misfortune or illtreatment with rage, by keeping the vows and covenants we have made, by being content with what we have, and by speaking what is true - trusting in the Lord's protection - with these deeds all is well with our soul and well between us and our fellow man.

Lord, thank you for this. Thank you for the realism of it, for the call to not add to the world's evil and injustice, for the possibility of individual, mass good. Were we like this Lord - cheerfully, humbly, unshakeably devoted to you, and living with upright, tender-hearted, generous consideration of others. How pitiful and rank that we prefer to be other.

Thank you for your Son, that he was this man, and that, in him, we are too. Thank you for freeing us from sin and Satan, so now we can always chose the good. Help us do it. Give us great love for you and others. May I grow in this, to show it and encourage my sisters in it. May they do this for me too.

Amen and amen.