THE GOD I KNOW Chapter Six

The Ten Wisdom-Laden Counsels (Commandments?) of the God I Know

All of the laws of the God I know are laws of magnificent beauty and harmony. The God I know doesn’t command us to do anything. They give us wise counsel, which we have the freedom to use or reject. Since Moses came down off the mountain, however, his people started using the word commandment – and churches still use it as a means of judgment and control. The “Ten Commandments,” understood as God’s heart intended them, are words of grace and comfort.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

God’s meaning in this instruction is, “Nobody loves you as much as I do. Nobody in your mortal experience will be able to love you purely, because love has been perverted in the Fall. If you worship (depend on, trust, give your allegiance to) anyone except me, you will be hurt and disappointed. Nobody in the world will believe in your goodness as I do, nor see the beautiful person I see in you. I am the only one who can reveal your true self to you and bring you to peace and joy. Let me be your God, so I can do that for you.”

This law in our scriptures is preceded by a reminder of how God delivered the children of Israel from the Egyptians. Its implications, via man’s (Satan’s) perversions, indoctrinate us with the concept that: “God has used cruel and destructive powers to rescue us from the Egyptians – or the Romans or the slave-holders, or the Nazis, etc. If we don’t worship Him, He will turn on us with those same powers and destroy us. We must fear this jealous God.”

It is true that God is capable of performing what we call “miracles” (meaning we don’t know how they are accomplished). God has used unfathomable powers many times in the world’s history to keep a reasonable balance between good and evil, in order that we might have a fair chance. It is not true that God’s reason for coming to our rescue is so that They can be tyrants ruling over us or so that we will feel obligated to Them. Their reason is that They love us and want us to be free. Even as They perform miracles in our behalf, They give us the freedom to choose whether we will thank Them and acknow-ledge Their hand in our blessings, or ignore Them and take the glory to ourselves.

In this commandment the Lord is also saying, “Satan will tempt you as he did me, to worship the gods of his world – riches, fame and dictatorial power. He will promise them to you and he will deliver them to you, if you are willing to deny your divine nature and to embrace evil, lust, selfishness and carnality. Because I understand you, I know this choice will bring you pain and loneliness and grief. Let the power of my love protect you from the power of evil. Choose me to be your God.”



Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.

God meant: “You are in the world experiencing opposition, separated from my physical presence. Sometimes in your loneliness and fear and lack of faith you will think to find comfort by making an image which you can see to worship. You will actually be searching for something to give you enough strength to continue your struggle. Anything you, a fallen mortal, can make for that purpose will be lifeless, empty and unable to give you what you need. The pure love of Christ is the only power which can help you. I, who am alive and caring and feeling, am the source of the love-energy which can quicken your inner being to be vibrantly alive and function with meaningful purpose. Do not waste your time with dead graven images. Come to me for life.”

Mortals have been made to feel: “God is very jealous. If you don’t worship Him and Him alone, He will punish you and your children and their children.” We know from experience that the sins of the parents are visited on the children. That is part of the fact of heredity and environment. It doesn’t happen because God is jealous or cruel. It happens because man is fallen and cannot prevent the passing on to his children of his own “idols.”

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

God meant: “My ability to help you is determined by your sincere desire for my help.
If you do not freely choose me with your heart, the words of your mouth, when you call upon my name, are to no avail. If you use my name synonymously with or to describe anything which is opposite to what I truly AM, you are negating the power of love in your own life and defeating yourself. Call upon me in love, so that in my response I will be able to let you feel the power of my love for you.”

Man has added to this simple law his own idea that: “God will find you guilty of sin and will punish you for swearing. He is vindictive and will make you pay a price for defiling His name.” God does not intend to punish us for taking His name in vain. He does not need to defend it. Our use of it cannot change what He-She IS. But how we use it determines whether or not They can be a power in our lives. It is a plain fact of which God is aware, that when we do take God’s name in vain, we are freely choosing to reject Them, for which we will suffer the consequence of Them being unable to be part of us.
It is as true for those who “pray” thoughtlessly using God’s name, as for those who blaspheme the name of God, that they cannot be recipients of the strength of God which is part of those who use God’s name with love and joy and reverence.

Keep the Sabbath day holy.

God meant: “It is hard for me to be separated from all of you whom I love, and to watch you working and struggling against opposition. I realize that the curse of Adam is hard to bear. One day in seven I would like to lift that curse for you and let you rest in my peace. Let’s spend that day together communing in the spirit, singing praises and rejoicing in our love for one another. I need to know you remember me, and you need the strength with which I can sustain you. Our closeness on the Sabbath will abide through the week, enhancing the beauty of our daily communications and making every day more holy.”

Fallen man has perverted this loving invitation into a burden by misinterpreting it too. We are told: “You are bad if you don’t go to church on Sunday, and you are bad if on Sunday you . . . “ and there is a long list of things for us to be afraid of doing, and an equally long list of penalties if we break these man-made rules. People become so guilt-ridden because they can’t keep all these rules, that they ignore the Sabbath day entirely, or else become so busily self-righteous in keeping the letter of the man-made laws that they cannot keep the spirit of love which God offers. One vicious-circle result of man’s perversion of this law is that even in church meetings, which are supposedly held to worship God and commune with Them, a great deal of time is spent condemning us for our sins and exhorting us to keep men’s laws or be punished. This pulls us even further away from the love of God and from the peaceful feeling which should hallow the Sabbath.

Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother

God gave this law with a double meaning. It means: “Remember the Father and Mother of your spirits, who love you with perfect unconditional love . . . and . . . remember the father and mother of your physical bodies who, because they are fallen, love you imper-fectly, but who gave you opportunity for mortal existence. They were each necessary to your becoming YOU, and so are part of you. If you acknowledge them with gratitude, your days will be happier and more filled with love.”

Here in mortality none of us has perfect parents. Parent-child relationships run the gamut from very good to very bad. In good relationships honoring our parents comes naturally. However, often our parents are responsible for much of the opposition in our lives, and it is hard for us to honor them in the sense of approving of and sustaining their imperfect-tions. That isn’t what God is suggesting we do. God understands that love begets love, and that it takes a special endowment from the Lord for us to be able to feel honest love
for our parents unless we feel honest love from them. God is asking us to respect our earthly father and mother as important people in our lives and to honor their right to be themselves. God knows that if we feel good about our parents, it is easier to feel good about ourselves. If we try to see their divine natures we will be able to accept them as valuable people and to appreciate the many positive contributions they make in our lives.

Thou Shalt Not Kill

God is saying, “Life is a sacred gift. Each person has the right to the full measure of his life. No person has the right to cut off life.” The God I know is also saying that we do not have the right to intentionally hurt each other in any way, but that we should tenderly protect all that is good and beautiful. So often in the world we thoughtlessly crush the enthusiasm of a child, or break someone’s heart by our selfish carelessness.
God is saying it is wrong to kill another’s hope or his faith or his sensitive spirit. It is wrong to do anything which would cause another person to become defensive and build up protective walls which hide his divine beauty.

Thou Shalt Not Steal.
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness.
Thou Shalt Not Covet.

Put into the wording of the Law of Love, God is saying, “I give you all that I have because I love you, and it brings me joy. Do not take from each other, but give with love and you will be richer.
“I tell you only the truth, because I care about you and want you to trust me. Show each other that you care by telling the truth. This will engender trust, and trust will engender love and appreciation.
“I can see each one of you as a treasured and beautiful part of my experience. As I rejoice in your unique beauty, my life is enriched. Instead of coveting what is your neighbor’s, rejoice with him in it. This will bring you precious fulfillment.”

Since we became victims of the perversions which cause us to feel a need to compete with each other, many mortals have become ruthless in their “dog-eat-dog” tactics. Men have worded these laws defensively to protect us from each other’s carnal natures. If we were purified, we would automatically by nature be so concerned about one another’s comfort that these laws would be unnecessary. However, it is necessary under the Fall to have some deterrent to total selfishness. Because these laws are just, they have become part of the basis for those civil laws of men which are designed to protect our personal rights in the world.

Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery.

God is really saying, “The ultimate love experience between a man and a woman is the holy of holies. It is the well-spring of life. It was, in your first experience with love, the power by which your Heavenly Father and Mother created your spiritual body. It is the power by which your earthly parents created your physical body. It is the power by which you may create bodies for other spirits of God. And it is the power by which it could be possible for you to create and people worlds of your own. Since in man-woman oneness is the key to continuance of life, inherent in this consummation is also the greatest responsibility in spiritual and physical relationships between men and women. Wherever you love, keeping this counsel will protect your love and will provide strength and power against evil. Outside of marriage, chastity will allow you to love freely with passionate response to the beauty of others and to their righteous needs. It will allow you to be of one heart and one mind with all whom you love. Within marriage, sexual fidelity will allow you to become bone of bone and flesh of flesh with one other person. That is the order of God. Love between a man and a woman is the most fragile of all powers, the most exquisitely beautiful, and the most easily twisted into opposition. Keep this sacred power pure by keeping its ultimate consummation in My order between husband and wife.”
God is telling us that Their own passionate love for us is, in us, a powerful force for good. Perverted by Satan to lust, it is a powerful force for evil. God is telling us that if we could refrain from adulterating the purity of love in any way, we would be free from lust and its evil consequences.

We have come to think of this “commandment” only in terms of committing sexual sin our of the order of marriage, and so we know it only as a restraining law. But to God, it has a much wider implication, a gloriously freeing concept. It encompasses Their desire that all love everywhere be allowed to be free from perversion, free from adulteration, free from having anything put into it that would make it less than perfect. It is a word of warning against hurting one another – but in a higher sense it is a word of hope in the possible reality of loving one another as God loves us – with peace and joy and perfect fulfillment, as we love in the order of God.

In God’s eyes, when a man and a woman take the vows of marriage, they are making a covenant to build together, by the complete joining of their energies, the perfect atmosphere (home) for the off-spring of their love. To God marriage is the ultimate relationship of creativity and responsibility, because it includes the life-renewing cycle. Therefore, until a man and woman are willing to make a commitment to one another which accepts all the responsibilities inherent in creating life, they do not have the right to unite sexually.

In the fallen world our best hope for giving our children an inheritance of security, love and happiness is in the context of marriage, with God as the acknowledged source of power.

TheGod I know understands that as we choose to keep sexual relations exclusive to marriage, all our relationships will have better possibility for fulfillment. The ultimate love experience between two people who are not married is the sharing of their unique intelligences and personalities. Their gift to one another is added light. If they err by lusting after one another’s bodies, they are caught in an insatiable trap where fulfillment is impossible and growth is damned. They miss knowing each other altogether and so are robbed of the light, love and joy with which their relationship could be radiantly alive.

If we could live the law “Thou shalt not commit adultery” as God understands it, we would have the freedom of loving each individual person in our lives with passionate closeness, as God loves us. We would be alive in love instead of afraid in lust. And we would also be eligible for the ultimate joy of complete fulfillment with one other person in holy marriage.