The shortened version, the one most of us memorize, says, " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image"
The full text says, "4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 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: 5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me: 6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments." (Exodus 20:4-6)
Phew...that was a long one. What does all this mean? Is He only talking about something like the golden calf of the Israelites? Or does this go deeper?
I believe it goes deeper. In today's world, many of us take time away from our Heavenly Father and our Savior and direct it to a myriad of other things: career, money, fame, personal body image, possessions, ...
In Deuteronomy 6:5 we read, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Yet, when we take our worldly pursuit to an extreme, we enlist all our heart, soul, and might, to reach those "idols". In short, we are worshipping any likeness of anything "that is in the earth beneath" and moving away from God.
Do we want to be so involved with pursuing and worshipping our worldly achievements that we put aside our pursuit of a relationship with our Heavenly Father and with our Savior?
All of our worldly pursuits will have an end, but our relationship with our Heavenly Father and with our Savior will stand and continue through the eternities. In Matthew 6:19-21 the Savior tells us (and I paraphrase) to not accumulate things here on earth but to "lay up for [ourselves] treasures in heaven... for where [our] treasure is, there will [our] heart be also."
What takes up all of your heart, soul, and mind?
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