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-====== What is my God? ... ======
+====== Who or What is my God? ... ======
-Friday, May 3, 2019.
+Friday, May 3, 2019. Over the past days I have run several times into the first commandment:
+do not have other Gods! We were reading the letter of Paul to the Romans recently with our
+bible study group, and Paul talks about how mankind lives without God. He talks about those
+choosing their own Gods.
+Also, life can point you to a particular topic. You realize that you have some categories
+in your mind. Things can be deep in your life, your feelings, in the way you look at the
+world. What are the Gods in YOUR life? I am realizing those in mine ...
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 ** First Commandment ... **
+The core point is summarized in the bible by a very old commandment.
+It is -- until today -- in the heart of faith, and
+in the heart of life. In 2nd Moses, also called the book of Exodus, chapter 20, it is written:
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 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before [besides] me.
 </color>(2 Moses 20, 1ff)
+This seems either trivial, or it seems a nuisance. Do not have other Gods! Some of us say
+that of course they believe only in ONE God, the creator of heaven and earth. You find people
+saying this in different religions. You also find those saying: there is no God. They think
+that the verses are merely a tool of power of one religion to oppress others, who do not
+believe, or who believe in another God. And it is possible to misuse any of the commandments!
+Unfortunately we have to say that it happened a lot in history. Humans are humans after all,
+and they tend to misuse things, even very good things.
+But the point here is much deeper. What is the commandment about? Why is it good to stick
+to the one and only God? What other Gods do we have? It is not just about the Gods who are
+declared as Gods, the concept here is much wider!
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 ** Life ... **
+Who is your God? The reformator Martin Luther in Germany argued that all things or people
+who are most important to you can take the role of "your God". What my heart depends on,
+is my God! The commandments want us to be free from worldly dependence and addiction. To
+this end, we need the eternal God!
+By the way, there are two lines of argument here. One is about facts. There is one God and
+only one God - the creator, in father and son and holy spirit. This is the Christian statement
+about the reality of this world. It is, in the first place, completely independent of whether
+this is useful for us or not, whether we need God or not. He IS.
+The second line of argument is that we are created to live with God. He is the center, we
+are created to be with him. Without him, something in our soul, our heart, our mind and our
+life is missing. We miss God, the heavenly home and father. We cannot live without him.
+We fill the missing part by other things. Here we come to the other Gods. These are those
+things or humans, which fill the role of God in our life.
+So now we can explore what other Gods are there and take HIS role. This might be acknowledgement,
+it might be money, it might be another person, it might be ... many things can take the role
+of God. Even hatred. Even anger or rage. It can be bitternes. It is time to discover the
+real God, in and through Christ Jesus, and also the others, which try to capture our heart!
 (Roland Potthast)
 [[http://www.jesusnetwork.eu/en/topics_collection_ix|... further texts]]