Idols

The ten commandments can sometimes seem harsh, cold and judgemental. In fact I received a speeding fine this week, there were circumstances leading to this but the law does not care about these and rightly so! There is no grace in the law, like a over bearing teacher it sticks to the rules no matter what. This feeling, thought and notion then gets directed towards God, isn't he cold, judging and uncaring.
Take the first commandment for example "you are to have no other gods before me, to love God with all your heart soul and mind..." - doesn't this just speak of God as a dictator, jealous for his own attention? This needs to be broken down and therefore I want to look at what other gods are being referred to and then why we shouldn't worship them.
Initially you might think well I don't worship any gods, in fact I don't believe in god at all. The worship of other gods here is referring to anything you put in God's place to seek your pleasure and joy. What if it was taken away from you would cause your world to collapse, if you lost your job, your phone, your family? Where do you get your identity from? Let me ask it a different way, what in your heart if you had it would solve all your problems? We all walk through life thinking if I just get that job, just get husband, just have a child life will be sorted. These things in and of themselves are not bad, however when they are the end seeking of our heart, when we look for our satisfaction in them, then this is what is called idol worship. Is it money, sex, sport, the right body...we could go on.
Now the reason that God would forbid these things is that you were made to be in relationship with God, that longing in your heart has been put there by God. A toaster is made to toast bread, a chair to be sat in, a keyboard to be typed, you were made to be with God and you will not find your wholeness and being until you find him. Therefore God asking you to come to him is the most loving thing in the whole universe because that is what you are made for. The Bible says why do we dig out old toilets and drink water from broken cisterns when we have the stream of living water in God. So God is not cold, God is totally seeking after your happiness which is only found in Him.
The real message about God is that he loves you so much that he is prepared to come and die in your place so that you can have this perfect relationship. Through Christ we can be free of slavery to these idols, we don't need to seek our happiness in a bottle, in what people think of us it is all in him, now that is total freedom. He doesn't demand it and therefore has given us time on this earth to come to him. He has appointed a time when he will say that enough is enough....where do you stand? I know how alien this sounds, I used to be in the same boat, all I would encourage you to do is to investigate...georgeosborn@hotmail.com