“I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:2-3, NKJV)
As Jesus carries out the process of working for our salvation, His first and highest priority is to fulfill the first-order laws in us and through us. If we walk according to our spirits, if we let our spirits hear Him—as our Saviour, as our Head Teacher—He will teach and train our spirits to have no other gods before Him. He humbles our spirits, so we might learn to love Him, to trust Him more than anyone or anything else. Once our hearts truly know Him, how infinitely loving and wise He is, we are not able to esteem nor serve any other god. Our highest priority becomes worshipping Him, our Creator.
We begin to see how serving ourselves, or other human gods, or idols, or any precious things or any esteemed entity is foolish and futile. Nothing weighs as much in our souls as our service to our God. And we serve Him by loving and serving His people, His creatures and His lands in ways that He will approve, in wise ways, for the good of all. Learning how to esteem and serve Him consumes the thoughts of our spirits, and many of the thoughts of our flesh as well. We meditate upon the concepts He “speaks” to our spirits, ponder the meaning of His words in the Bible, and seek to conform all the understanding of our spirits to His truth and wisdom. Whenever we make decisions of the heart, we put His will and His priorities ahead of all others, and strive to manage the rebellious thinking of our flesh. We want to practise only in His just and loving ways, in the truth He teaches our spirits, as our joy in Him. We no longer let others dictate the ways in which we must serve, not if those ways are not God’s ways, since only God is our God. No other entity is higher than God in our souls, and we will not willingly serve any entity rather than God. If we truly know God, our spirits cannot help but reserve our highest esteem for Him alone, and cannot esteem anyone or anything else. This esteem causes our spirits to want to be like Him, to emulate Him, as our highest priority. This highest esteem for Him permeates all our inner decisions, turns all in us to the will our God. Our wills begin to seek His will in all matters, as we grow into the likeness of Jesus our God. He is before all we say and do.
Consequently, this first commandment is the most critical. God placed this at the top, as the head of all His other commandments and laws. For, when Jesus teaches and trains our spirits to love and guard the first-order commandments, He is actually teaching us to love and guard all of His other commandments and ways as well, spontaneously, from our love for Him growing in the minds of our spirits. If we fulfill this first of the Ten Commandments, we fulfill all the other Ten Commandments too, all 613 commandments of the Old Covenant Law, according to God’s own interpretations of His laws. This first commandment is the essence of our love for God, thus, the essence of our love for His people and all His creations. If we have no other gods before God, we will say and do all things well before Him. If God is esteemed and served as the first priority of our spirits’ love, our lives become loving and just in all our ways. For we will hear Him attentively and willingly serve Him.
Because the elect have been created from the very Spirit of God, from His “breath,” and made in His image, our spirits inherently take great pleasure in every truth we receive from Him, from the Holy Spirit of our God Jesus. Those truths about Him and His creations consume the thoughts of our spirits, become some of the most highly valued treasures of our hearts, second only to our love for Him and His people. And our personal love is ever-increasing, because of those truths we guard in our hearts. Soon nothing matters to us, except our love for Him and His words, which grows daily through the understanding of those truths that He grants to our spirits. If nothing else in this life, or the next life, matters to us, since all we think about is pleasing our beloved Father in heaven through the power of our beloved Jesus, then we will lovingly, honestly and justly serve Him according to all that His Holy Spirit personally teaches to our spirits. Consequently, we begin to fulfill literally all of the commandments pertaining to the love of God. Then we also love His people and creations more deeply, with His kind of righteous love that He grows in our spirits. If we do not concern ourselves about our own image, do not worship ourselves as our own gods, and cast aside even our “Christian image,” which is also a form of self-worship and idolatry, but only concern ourselves with what God wills us to do through our love and respect for Him in our spirits, then we shall more often speak the truth through love and do the loving, wise works of Jesus’ own hands. We will rightly worship Him.
Our God Jesus proclaimed, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it ” (Mat. 10:37-39, NKJV). This is what this first commandment is all about. It is to love our Saviour and Creator God first and foremost, before all the other gods that our flesh tends to worship. For, when God becomes our first and foremost love, through the teachings of Jesus directly to our spirits, this ever-increasing love will begin to express itself in true and righteous love for all His people. If we love God, we worship God; we esteem and serve God; we follow God at all cost to everything else in life. So we do not even love our own lives more than we love God. We see that all the works those other gods want us to do, to worship them, are meaningless. We realize that we cannot live as other gods want us to live. Our spirits repel the esteem and service of other gods, because we see how a life of worshipping those false gods is a dreary, futile slavery to delusions and sins. So we would rather die than bear that kind of existence. We cannot even force our flesh to live by the worship of those fake gods, for our spirits have clearly seen and experienced real, abundant life beyond measure. The eternal and truly valuable treasures of love and truth have accumulated in our souls, and other gods can offer no substitutes for these. Even in persecution or tragedy, we find hope to carry on just one moment more, for His sake and for the sakes of His creation. Although our bodies of flesh and works of service on earth are a weight upon our our spirits, bearing down on our spirits, preventing us from freely flying up to heaven, we long to bear this weight for Him. Yet our own deaths are not death, since our spirits know we cannot die, but will rise to eternal life at home.
The first of the Ten Commandments is an archetypal, spiritual law, representing many laws or ways of the spirit, which our heavenly Father teaches us through Jesus the Messiah. All these first-order laws pertain to a deep love of God, just as the next three or four orders of His laws do. And these first-order laws actually teach our spirits how to love God, with all that is in our hearts, souls and minds. When God becomes the most beloved of our spirits, we guard our hearts from errors, we serve God with our whole souls, and the minds of our spirit cause the minds of our flesh to think in ways that truly please God, for the good of all His people and all His creations. Our lives revolve around God. Thus, we can no longer esteem and serve any other gods, certainly not the human gods who usurp Christ’s role as the heads of their own man-made churches, nor the manipulated idols those human gods invent in their own minds and call by the names of God. Once we know the real God, our elect spirits cannot help but love and worship Him. So we can no longer esteem and serve lying, fake gods who often change their minds about their so-called “truths” whenever it benefits their flesh. We can no longer place our faith in those gods, nor in their words. Instead, our spirits can only trust the real God and His words. We can only serve and proclaim Him, as the apostle Paul did:
“For [am I now promoting esteem toward] men, or God? [The Greek verb here is πείθω and, in this context, would not mean ‘to convince,’ but ‘to conciliate,’ or ‘to promote good will or esteem.’] Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
[Those who make a show of their personal piety before the eyes of other human beings say they do this to please God. But, by outwardly displaying their faith to other souls, with actions like bowing their heads and giving thanks for a meal in a public restaurant, they are usually esteeming only themselves. And, by approving of others who also practise these outward displays of piety, they esteem those others. Then the people esteem theme too. Yet God is not esteemed in all this! And God never required His people to perform public rituals before unbelievers, nor even as a mere show before believers. God never said we should voice a thanksgiving prayer out loud before men, not even during a family or church meal. Rather, this is a ritual invented by men. What Jesus really wants is a thankful spirit in the heart, all day and every day, not man-made traditions like praying before every meal. And who are these churchy people actually serving when they make their public displays of piety? Are they making an advertisement for themselves, to sell themselves to the people? Are they doing a good deed by advertising their church and their religion of man-made “Christianity”? Are they selling a man-invented “Jesus,” or a “Jesus” invented through man’s own imagination? If so, then they are serving man, not God. Some of the elect may even think to themselves: ‘I will go through the embarrassment and humiliation of public prayer, even in a restaurant, as a witness to others, to show that I believe God exists.” Yet God exists whether or not anyone believes He exists. And how can a man-made ritual, like a public prayer, prove anything to an unbeliever about His existence? Only the works of God, in and through one’s life, prove His existence. So is this public prayer simply done to impress other believers with one’s own piety? If it is not a spontaneous fruit of one’s spirit through the love Jesus worked within one’s heart, and in the truth His Holy Spirit taught to one’s spirit, but is merely an attempt to manipulate other souls into thinking about God, or done to esteem oneself, and if it is only done by one’s flesh, through the mind of one’s flesh for eyes of flesh to see, then it is just an utterly meaningless, man-made tradition, and reflects upon God in a very negative way. Are those who act and dress in certain ways to make a public display of religion really thinking about the eternal welfare of other human spirits, through the love of their spirits? When religious souls play-act these man-made expressions of piety through the flesh, does it really have anything to do with walking according to their human spirits, as their spirits are being taught by Christ’s Holy Spirit? In reality, when they perform these man-made traditions, they are serving the human gods who invented and required those traditions. They worship themselves and a myriad of other false gods, but have refused to esteem and serve the one, true God.]
“But I make known to you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. [All true Christians must receive all truths about Jesus and His ways from Jesus Christ Himself. All their spirits must be personally taught by Jesus Himself, granted revelations about the true meaning of His words by Jesus Himself. For the very most that any man can provide is a truth taught to him by Jesus, a truth which the Holy Spirit of Jesus Himself must confirm to every individual spirit. If Jesus does not confirm a word taught by another human being, that teaching by the human being is useless to the spirit of the hearer. Either the spirit of the one being taught by men will let those truths be snatched from one’s mind by demonic spirits, or that hearer might let it grow in one’s heart temporarily, until it is choked to death by the cares of life, through distracting troubles in Satan’s world order. Only Jesus Himself can firmly establish a truth in one’s own spirit, whether it has been first proclaimed by another human being who faithfully serves Him, or Jesus Himself reveals that truth directly to one’s spirit. This is why Jesus proclaimed that He alone is the Head Teacher of every individual man in His priesthood of His church, not any other human being (Mat. 23:8-12). And this is why Paul reiterated this teaching from Jesus when He told us that the Head of every mature male believer is Jesus the Christ, not any other man (I Cor. 11:3-16). And only the men whom Jesus calls, teaches, trains and sends out to be teaching elders, like Paul, can become assistants of the one and only authoritative Teacher, Jesus. So none of these teaching elders can hold any authority themselves, cannot teach any authoritative principles to any spirit, cannot be believed in any matter of life or faith until their words are confirmed by Jesus. All teaching elders serve as brothers, as helping disciples among other equal disciples. A true elder in Christ’s true church is not an authoritative teacher lording it over his own disciples. All disciples in every genuine church must disciples of Jesus alone, and all disciples of men are not Christ’s disciples. Also, not even our God, Creator, King and Teacher, Jesus, ever lords it over His disciples in pride. He always humbly and patiently teaches His disciples, even when they have a tantrum and angrily yell at Him in frustration.] ...
“But when it pleased God , who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me , that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood [Whenever Jesus approaches and calls an elect spirit into His church, to serve Him, He awakens that spirit enough to know that one must be taught and trained directly by Him, by His Holy Spirit, who is the one and only Creator God. Then that elect spirit almost immediately begins to reject the principles of Satan’s world order, especially the “free will” doctrines of the devil’s most effective false religion, humanism. One’s whole frame of thought and carnal mindset collapses like stone walls transformed into dust, and one realizes that one’s entire life was predestined from the moment one’s life was formed in the womb of one’s mother. And, only when it pleased God Himself, was one’s spirit awakened. Only at the moment God chose, did God reveal Himself and His truth to one’s heart, to realize one’s personal destiny and calling, all through His totally unmerited grace alone.] ... But from those who seemed to be something—whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God shows personal favoritism to no man—for those who seemed to be something added nothing to me [Here Paul confesses what all the elect must learn for themselves, that they are utterly useless and worthless. Without God’s power working through the awakened elect in the true church, to make their words and deeds effective, they can accomplish nothing that is of any value to God or man, nothing whatsoever. As for the unawakened elect and the non-elect, all their words and deeds cause harm to themselves and others, never any real good, not unless God intercedes and uses His power to make their works effective for their good—which He often does. Not even Christ’s most useful disciple, Peter, was of any use to Paul, nor to any other soul, except when Jesus spoke through him or made his works effective through His power. Whatever a man may seem to be in the eyes of any other men, even in the eyes of awakened elect, makes no difference to us. For all the true good they might effectively say and do is through Jesus alone. And Jesus both can and will effectively speak and do good through any and all His awakened, faithful elect disciples, sending them out to serve their heavenly Father as His own mouth and hands, without showing any kind of favouritism or partiality. His only concern is to train their spirits to do the works of their eternal destinies, with great joy.]” (Gal. 1:10-12, 15-16; 2:6, NKJV).
It is now time for the elect to awake and have no other gods before God, to centre their lives on Him. When the elect of the coming true churches no longer try to please pastors, teachers and other people in the church, and only try to please God, all will be well with their souls. And, if some of God's people seek men in Bible colleges, to teach them God's Word, they must be very careful not to say or do anything for grades, for the approval of those men, but only to learn what is truly of God for God, to learn directly from our God, Jesus, not from men. Of course, the elect can and should listen to other souls, even to the perceived lowest of souls in the humanistic hierarchies built by men. But also let each elect man thoroughly and diligently investigate anything spoken by others, by going to the Source and Head Teacher of all genuine truth, through much prayerful searching of God's Word. For men are granted this ability. The minds of flesh belonging to men were designed by God with the ability to allow the mind of his spirit to think and to hear the Spirit of God without distracting that mind of the spirit with any earthly concerns. The minds of flesh in women do not allow their spirits to think independently, without distractions. So elect men bear the duty to do this, to hear their God, to speak directly to Him often, for the sakes of their people. It may sometimes even take years to honestly evaluate a concept their spirits have received from God or one of His human agents. But a man is required to do this diligence and hard work, for the sakes of all. Jesus requires every elect man to directly to Him for the truth, to gain as much as the Messiah grants him the ability to receive.
Every mature elect man whom Christ has awakened and brought into His true church serves as a priest to his family, to provide a solid, loving, safe, reliable and beneficial framework, a structure of principles and concepts for their predestined, God-given works and lives. God grants every mature male the right to eat the most holy bread, food directly offered to God, to digest the nature of Christ, so it becomes an integral part of his entire being—his body, soul and spirit. And, although a mature elect woman’s soul and spirit must also be nourished by church offerings to Christ, His nature cannot become an integral part of a woman’s body and mind of flesh, not in the same way as a man, since her flesh was created to concern itself more with the physical needs of her loved ones, as well as their spiritual and emotional needs. Her mind was created to see and think about everyone in the sphere of her earthly life at all times. So a male elect disciple is called to serve Jesus and His people through his flesh in a way that no woman can. Yet every elect male must also ensure that he properly represents all God’s people before God’s eyes, and correctly represents God to them, to build up the structures of homes and churches, to keep God’s people safe from errors, lies and delusions of men, as much as Jesus grants him the power to do so. And, during the latter years of his life, if Jesus will choose him to serve as His assistant, as a teaching elder in a church, he must do more of these kinds of works for Jesus and for them. All in his life, and his life to come, depends on Jesus, since only Jesus can deliver all “out of the house of bondage.” Now let every elect man serve Jesus alone, in a way that does not put any other god before God, where all his thoughts and decisions are in Christ.
The most universal sign of an elect spirit being saved by Christ Jesus occurs when the person’s spirit begins to zealously guard the uncorrupted and pure truths one receives directly from Jesus, where one does not allow His truths to be corrupted by any deceptions and delusions. For this fulfills all the first-order laws of God, through one’s spirit, in a way that results in the outward expression of His learned truths in one’s life. And this always results in God becoming the first love of one’s life, with abundant excess love overflowing to other human beings and to all God’s creations. Salvation is not about an attempt to be outwardly pious, not about burning physical idols or killing idolaters, not about a mind of flesh striving to turn all its thoughts to serve a fake religion through a “free will,” which always ends in hypocrisy and evil. Nor is it about delusions of the flesh, in carnal mysticism or psyched out emotional ecstasies. Nor is it about using the human will to gain wealth or health in fake “faith.” Rather, salvation is about Jesus teaching and training one’s spirit to be like Him in all knowledge and wisdom. And every eternal truth taught to our spirits by the Holy Spirit of Jesus will always remain true even if no one else on earth believes it—including the truth that our loving God is the one and only Creator God, the God who rules over all people and over all the gods their flesh may choose to worship. No one is able to believe any truth unless God Himself inserts that truth into the mind of one’s spirit. God must put truth inside each of His chosen, awakened, called and beloved children, within each one’s elect spirit. If God Himself does not teach a truth to a spirit, that spirit is incapable of believing that truth. Therefore, this truth, that God is above all other gods, must be put in our spirits by God Himself. None can believe this until God reveals it to our spirits. But, when Jesus saves us, this is the ultimate truth He teaches to our spirits. Then our first priority becomes to serve and please Him, and we begin to do so spontaneously, from our spirits. Our words and deeds for Him begin to overflow from our spirits, into manifest expressions of our love through our flesh.
God’s verity, reality and preeminence is revealed by the Holy Spirit of Jesus directly to our spirits, and these truths are built up in the minds of our spirits by His hands alone, until all our thoughts of our spirits begin to spontaneously relate all in life to Him and His words, until all our decisions of our spirits are made in His truth and in His will, as our spirits seek to please Him alone—although the thoughts and decisions of our flesh remain incapable of doing this, and must be managed by our spirits. So the fulfilling of this first commandment is worked inwardly by Jesus, not by the minds of our own spirits and certainly not by our minds of flesh. Yes, our spirits can somewhat alter the ways in which our minds of flesh think. For the minds of our spirits think all the moral or loving thoughts that become our inner consciences, thoughts that rebuke and correct our flesh when our flesh wants to sin. But who shapes the minds of our spirits? Where can our spirits find the truths they can use in rebuking and correcting the flesh as it falls into error and sin? Our spirits cannot learn these verities from any other infantile spirits of human sinners. No other human being possesses the knowledge and wisdom that Jesus Christ does, nor the power to communicate spiritual truths directly to another human spirit. None but God, an utterly Holy Spirit with infinite knowledge and wisdom, can see and alter every thought inside the minds of our spirits. None but Jesus is able to rebuke, correct, teach, train, shape, guide and change the thoughts of our spirits. Therefore, we must silence our minds of flesh and allow Jesus, the Holy Spirit, to fulfill this first commandment in our spirits and through our lives. All our love for our Creator God, with all our ability to worship Him in our spirits and in the genuine truth, must be constructed inside our souls by God Himself. All must originate from Jesus.
Let me repeat, the first-order laws relate directly to all God’s other laws. For instance, in Colossians 3:5, God tells us that greed or covetousness, which are tenth-order laws, are forms of idolatry, that is, they also break His second-order laws. For greed or covetousness consumes all the thoughts and decisions of one’s entire soul—both the thoughts in one’s mind of flesh and the thoughts in the mind of one’s spirit—causing one to esteem and serve money or possessions as one’s god, which is clearly idolatry. A covetous mind of flesh takes captive the mind of one’s spirit, forcing the spirit to either remain silent and oppressed, or to direct all its thoughts in serving of money or other coveted things. Thus, covetousness is indeed the worship (esteem and service) of money and other coveted things, as one’s idols or gods, and breaks both the tenth-order laws and second-order laws. Also, the greedy or covetous one heeds the demands of money or other coveted things more than the words of God, and makes all one’s decisions based upon the counsel of Mammon rather than upon the counsel of God. So the greedy or covetous one puts Mammon before the real God, worships Mammon as a higher and greater god than God. Mammon’s words and teachings are raised higher and Mammon is being worshipped first, before one ever thinks of worshipping and serving the real God. Almost none of the thoughts and decision of one’s spirit will ever conform to God’s will. Thus, a greedy or covetous one breaks the first-order laws, as well as the second-order laws, while one breaks the tenth-order laws.
All the laws of the first five orders are related to one another, and anyone who breaks one of the last five orders of laws through the assent of one’s spirit is always breaking the first five orders of laws as well. For, if one’s spirit allows one’s flesh to lie or sin, that one demonstrates how one’s spirit does not place the real God above all other gods and does not worship only the real God in truth. If one’s spirit allows one’s flesh to break any of the last five orders of God’s laws, which regulate the love of other human beings within the sphere of one’s life, then proves that one’s spirit: (1) puts other gods before the real God, (2) worships idols, (3) abuses God’s name, (4) refuses to allow one’s spirit to enter God’s eternal Sabbath rest and (5) does not honour the Father of one’s spirit by acting honourably. Conversely, if a spirit breaks any one of these first five orders of God’s laws, then one will automatically break any and all of the last five orders of God’s laws too, because one will have no Spirit of God within one’s soul, within one’s heart, to teach, train and counsel one into any kind of just, God-like love built on a foundation of truth that can only originate from God. That one will not have any inner conscience, not knowledge and wisdom in the mind of one’s spirit. Therefore, if one’s spirit allows or condones the breaking of any one of God’s laws, that one has broken them all.
The tenth-order laws, second-order laws and first-order laws are all broken through covetousness or greed. In other words, the least of all sins, covetousness, leads to the worst of all sins. And all of the laws of God are directly related to one another. So one sin also leads to another. And we see this all the time. If someone begins to serve the demonic god of Mammon, the pursuit of money and other coveted things will rule one’s life. One becomes a slave of Mammon. Mammon becomes one’s god above all other gods. Then one also begins to lie, cheat, commit fraud and steal to get more money or to gain power and whatever else one’s selfish ambitions covet. Later, one’s money will often lure one into an exploitative and sexually immoral life. Then one may want to get rid of a person standing in the way of one getting more money or coveted things, or may need to defend acquired wealth and power from someone who want to take it away from one, or may need to cover up sins committed by the worship of Mammon and other demon gods, in order to prevent being held accountable for one’s sins. So one may even be willing to murder for Mammon. In all this, one dishonours not only one’s earthly parents, but also one’s Father in heaven. And one’s soul can never finds any Sabbath rest. So, if one feels God’s judgment upon one’s soul, one may seek false religion to falsely justify one’s sins in one’s own mind, and will search out fake preachers who tickle one’s ears, who abuse God’s name by proclaiming comforting lies in God’s name. As for worshipping idols, one did this from the start, as soon as one began to esteem and serve Mammon and oneself. Also, by worshipping Mammon and oneself, as one’s first and foremost priority in life, one surely put other gods before the real God. In this way, one’s spirit has literally broken all God’s laws. One has surely earned one’s place in hell!
So now we must understand how the ultimate goal of Christ’s salvation is to fulfill the first order laws in us and through us. Jesus begins His salvation by teaching elect hearts the most simple and most physically oriented laws. Although all His laws are spiritual, and the actual fulfillment of all His laws must begin with the spirit, Jesus first teaches our spirits to forbid our flesh from coveting anything, to be content with a simple, modest life centred around love. Then Jesus teaches our spirits to respect the truth, to understand how love must be grounded upon pure truth, and how damaging even “little white lies” can be. Next, He shows our spirits how theft always steals trust, and therefore love, from our community. After this, He proves how sexual exploitation destroys hearts and love, but how marriage covenants build both the foundation and structure of every kind of family within a land, where a their sharing provides equitably for all through love. Lastly, Jesus reveals His love by His human agents upon earth, so we might respect the life He placed in each and every human being, so we might learn to never dehumanize others, so we will not spiritually or physically murder human souls. These are the last five orders of God’s laws, and are the first things Jesus teaches to literally all elect spirits throughout their lives, even to the hidden elect, whose minds of flesh remain completely unaware of the biblical names of God or His written words, who still stand outside of the priesthood of His true church. Jesus is saving them all. If we see someone who has let one’s spirits learn these lessons well, we recognize that one as God’s elect child, as our brother or sister in God’s family, even if that one is trapped in a false religion. However, when we see someone whose spirit has been learning to comprehend and apply the first five orders of God’s Law, we recognize that one as a member of God’s priesthood, the true church of Israel. Only if we see an elect spirit who has been awakened enough to know and begin to practise the first five orders of God’s laws, can we begin to include that person in the works of Christ’s true church. And God’s first-or