Last month I introduced this new series that I'll be using for my monthly letters to our Compassion children. The first letter was an introduction to the Ten Commandments, and this letter focuses on the first commandment.
How are you? We are well. We have celebrated Christmas and the New Year and are looking forward to all God has for us in 2016.
In my last letter I introduced the 10 commandments to you. These are the commands God gave to Moses, for the Israelites to follow. Even now, all of God's followers (people like you and me) should follow these commands.
Let's take a closer look at the first one..."Thou shalt have no other gods before me"
Do you know what that means? It means that we need to love God more than we love anyone or anything else. If you love someone a lot, you will probably want to spend time with them, talk to them, play with them, tell them you love them, get to know them well and more. Or if there is a certain activity you like doing a lot, you will want to spend a lot of time doing that activity.
But God wants to be first in our lives - above everyone and everything else. How can we do this if we can't physically see God every day? We can still spend time with Him and get to know Him by reading the Bible. The Bible is full of stories that tell us who God is. We can also talk to him through prayer. I don't think prayer has to be a formal time that we set aside each day. It can be, but we can also communicate with God all day long in everything we are doing, just like we would talk to a friend who was right there with us. We can also show our love to God by loving other people and helping those around us. We can't exactly hug God, but we can hug someone who is sad, and by loving that person, we are loving God.
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Our God is a living God...the only God with power. In I Kings 18 you can read the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal (a false god). Elijah and the prophets both prepared a bull for sacrifice, but they were not allowed to light the fire themselves. The prophets of Baal called on their god, Baal, to send fire but nothing happened. When Elijah called on his God - the God of Israel, the same God you and I serve - the fire of the Lord fell from heaven and burnt up the sacrifice!
This week, this month, I challenge you to wake up each day and say to the Lord, "I choose to love you more than anyone or anything today." I'll be saying it too.
Love, the Foley family
I took the photo with my iphone and edited it on pizap. If you want to use it to send to your own kids, let me know and I'll email it to you. I actually have three different edits, so let me know specifically which one you want.
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