These 10 Commandments posters were made for our church's junior high ministry. Our jr. high pastor provided the visual concepts for the commandments, and my job was to illustrate them. As is true that the best way to really learn something is to prepare to teach it, I'm really glad and thankful that because of this opportunity, I myself got to spend more time with the Commandments and consequently encounter God's love in a deeper way.
My conclusion upon completing the project is that God is GOOD, as always. Oftentimes on the surface level, the commandments automatically become turn-offs to many people because they are misunderstood as a didactic list of "Do's" and Do not's" that are meant to oppress your free spirit and make your life boring. But as one is willing to spend a bit more real time to understand the context, how these came to be, and the character of the loving God who provided these for us (not against us), one only comes to realize that they are actually a compilation of "love-calls" from God, like a love-letter from the most loving parent to the beloved child.
Although we were all created by God and made to live in the joy of Him, because we live in this finite and fallen world as humans, we constantly meet with influences that try to drive us away from God. Everything BUT God always tries to take that rightful, ultimate place of God in our lives. But God Himself patiently, caringly, lovingly STILL wouldn't let go of us even as we aimlessly drift away from God, from one sin to another; He gave us some guidelines that would help us to remain in Him better, so that we may truly enjoy our loving relationship with the Father, and also with other people/ our neighbors, just as God has called us to live with one another in peace. Remaining in Him is important, because only in Him do we find the true freedom from every kind of oppression, and are fully satisfied in being just who we are as His children.
The enemy of God, the ruler of this world, has the sole mission to deceive and destroy us, God's wonderfully- and fearfully-made children. We've already been created by God according to His image, to commune with Him, worship Him and experience the joy of Him. The only thing that the enemy can do and wants to do is to pervert and destroy the very things that have been wonderfully and fearfully made, and he is on a fierce mission to do just that.
But God's mission is to give us life not destruction, through His Son Jesus Christ, who died AND rose again, and therefore has conquered death and the enemy ONCE AND FOR ALL. This victory means that if we believe in Jesus, we also partake in His defeat of death and resurrection to new life, so that we also have new life eternally with God, have freedom (not oppression), and live under the Most High God's CRAZY love for us...
So with an ever-growing appreciation for each of these "love-calls" from God, I finally completed them. It took a while to complete for various reasons, including my timidity, but even throughout the delay, I experienced His mercy and patience with me. He also enabled me to go deeper into some of the commandments during this time, which resulted in much better understanding, appreciation and clearer depiction of His loving message for us in each commandment. With all that said, I'm definitely not a great illustrator or a great understander of the things of God, but I do at least hope that just as the Commandments have brought greater wisdom and blessing into my life, that they would touch and greatly bless the students and other people as well, so that we all may exalt God for all the perfect goodness that He is, and remain in Him better as we continue our lives here on earth.
Ten Commandments
1. I am the Lord 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.
2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.
3. 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.
(A personal revelation that I wanted to share... This Commandment is not only and merely forbidding you from cursing/ swearing/ using "God" angrily and frivolously, etc... God's name embodies His holy character as the Greatest, Almighty, Awesome GOD. Just as we wouldn't handle something great without care, we should handle God's name with a great care all the more when He is the Lord of lords, the Name above all names. It's about respecting His name (and I'm preaching this to myself too as I write this, because too many time I frivolously blurt out His name in ways that have nothing to do with faith or giving Him praise). It's also not about using His name to validate our claims in front of others. It's also not letting our tongues roll recklessly and ruthlessly against God and others, especially when we identify ourselves as Christians, the supposed followers of Christ and children of God.) The main point is that, we should respect God's name. Even the Lord's Prayer begins as following: "Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name...)
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
(Treating them like royalty, with respect)
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
(Enlarge to see people hiding under and spreading false rumors. keke.)
10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.
(A highlight on the "1" to draw our attention back to the first Commandment; when we focus on God and His unique work in us, then I think we can better avoid the temptation of coveting.)
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