Doing things God’s way is to be holy and godly but, doing things God’s way has been mischaracterized and misrepresented. We think being godly means following a set of rules, God’s rules, the ten commandments. We know those rules are impossible to keep and follow 24/7-365; that’s why we do things like attend church or perform an act of service by donating some time to a benevolent non-profit to compensate.
God knows we do not and cannot keep the ten commandments 24/7-365. He did not give us those commandments to show us how evil we are, nor did He give us those commandments to test us to see if we are obedient or not. He gave us the ten commandments so we could live.
The reason we need the ten commandments is because we are sinners and fail in life. Why do we fail? Because, we want to live life our way. Living life our way, as humans, means living life for our own benefit and pleasure. It means achieving, becoming better than other fellow humans so they will admire us. It means being driven to achieve more so we can enjoy feeling pleasure and be able to rest, relax, and be served and catered to. Before sin, there was no need for God’s law or commandments.
The sin of mankind is represented by the sin of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve represent all of mankind, this is why we are born sinners; we all have the same desire and goal as Adam and Eve. That desire and goal is to live our lives focusing on becoming better so we can be admired by others and enjoy comfort and pleasure at will. It is self-focused. This is a horizontal life. A horizontal life is a life lived by comparing ourselves to others and doing what we can to be at a higher level than others around us.
God did not intend for us to live horizontal lives. He intended for us to live a vertical life. A vertical life is a life lived that is God-focused. It is a life where our desire and goal is to seek and follow His direction AND praise and thank Him for what He does and what He has provided. This is vertical living.
The benefit of vertical living is God is a reciprocating God. He provides and gives while we worship and thank Him causing Him to provide and give more which should cause us to worship and thank more. It’s a cycle.
With a vertical life, the joy and abundance of God’s reciprocating love toward us overflows into horizontal relationships. Horizontal relationships are relationships with others, our fellow mankind.
Being holy simply means being different. It’s being different than our propensity to be self-focused to becoming God-focused. It’s learning to live a vertical life versus a horizontal life. Living a vertical life causes our horizontal relationships to be tolerable and more enjoyable.
God’s commandments are not a test for us to determine if we are good or bad. They are laws, rules, and guidelines, if followed, to help us Live. If followed, we can know how to Manage, Cope, and Deal with conflict, adversity, and failure. Yes, we can know how to deal with failure because we will encounter failure in this life.
We encounter conflict, adversity, and failure because the world we live in is cursed and corrupt. It is cursed and corrupt because mankind set out to manage his affairs and the affairs of life his way versus God’s way. This is the sin that resulted in the world being cursed. God plans to restore us to a sinless world in the future. This is His promise. In the meantime, we are forced to live in this sin-cursed world dealing with the challenges of conflict, adversity, and failures encountered because of our innate desire and choice to be self-focused instead of God-focused.
Being holy is not what we have been taught; It is not keeping a set of rules. God says, “If you love me, keep my commandments”. What He is saying is “If you love me, you will live your life vertically and live by keeping my commandments so you will get along with your fellow mankind in peace and harmony, and recognize Me as God, giving praise and thanksgiving to Me for your life.
Living life God’s way brings peace, harmony, and SOLUTIONS. God’s way for solving conflict, adversity, and injustice is necessary because we are living in a corrupt, sin-cursed world. When God gives us His New Earth, we no longer will need to live by His commandments. Sin and the curse will be abolished. Our innate desire will be equal and consistent with His desire.
We now can live in this sin-cursed world tolerating and coping with its consequences because of Jesus who died for our sins. He carries us through the “fire” of life. There may be uncomfortable times, but Jesus carries us through to the end.
Our yielding to God’s commandments makes the journey more tolerable. This is being different; this is being holy.