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--- jn_en_2018_02_08 [2018/02/08 01:44] – potthast
+++ jn_en_2018_02_08 [2018/02/08 02:01] (current) – potthast
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 ======  2nd Commandment ... ======
-Thursday, Feb 8, 2018.
+Thursday, Feb 8, 2018. Humans have a generic sense of justice. We know, for whatever reason, what we believe
+to be a just decision. Or we have a sense of just relationships. Not all of our ideas about justice are
+without inherent contradictions. But it is very interesting to see that we all live with ethics and ideas
+of what we should do or how things should be! That includes behaviour, but also attitude. It includes
+communication, saying the truth. There is much in what we naturally attach to justice!
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-** The Lord, your God ...**
+** Holy Name ...**
+Our natural understanding of ethis is the basis for understanding holiness. When someone would be
+fully just, we would call him holy. Holy originally means something like "out of our world" or "special".
+It reflects the fact that no one is really holy in this world. It is just impossible to be just in all
+what we do. There might be many reasons for that ... let us talk about this another day.
+Here, we need to look at the biblical message about God, about the creator and ultimate personal
+spirit. He is fully just, he is full of love, full of truth, he is all what we would call just. He is,
+indeed, holy - that is at the core of the biblical message. It is the background for the second
+commandment:
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-“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
+“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
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-** My Life ...**
+** Taking God Serious ...**
+There is a simple path to not misusing the name of the Lord. It is to fully take him serious. It is
+to get to know him, and then to live up to this knowledge.
+But how do you get to know God to do this? Are we not bound to misuse his name, if we use it at all?
+The New Testament paves a path to God, it is Jesus who is the door! When we come to him, when we get
+to know him, when we believe in him, we move along this path, we go through the door. Jesus, the son of
+God, he is God himself, who became human. He is the lamb of God, the holy one, the messiah, the
+annointed one. The holy spirit is living with him and in him. Jesus can be the one to relate to.
+He is the one we should believe in.
+When I talk about believing in Jesus, I think of it as a personal relationship. It is you alone, you
+with your thoughts, your emotions, your will, your heart, your decisions, who believes. It is a very
+intimate and personal thing. Of course, it is also a public matter, since you cannot believe and stay
+quiet about it. But the core of faith is in your heart! And with this type of serious faith, you
+will start to honor God, his presence and his holiness. You will honor his name and obey the second
+commandment.
 (Roland Potthast)
 [[http://www.jesusnetwork.eu/en/topics_collection_ix|... further texts]]
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