A Prayer about the Way to Love

Faithful God,

As I reread the Ten Commandments you gave your people long long ago, 

I wonder if we have marginalized them. 

Do we still memorize them, 

and even more importantly, 

do we meditate on their meaning and purpose? 

More importantly than that, 

do we ask you for the power to live them out?

Do we remember that they were based on a covenant: 

You first loved us, 

and because we know that love through Jesus, 

we love you and others?

I love what Eugene Peterson says about these commandments:

He reminds us that the two tablets summarize our relationship with God and with others. 

And then he reminds us how the commandments define love: 

“For love isn’t a sentimental way of feeling 

but a sanctified way of living 

that respects the value of other people, 

respects their property,

and respects their reputation. 

Love sets the boundaries

around our relationship with God and with other people, 

not to keep us from enjoying those relationship, 

but so we can enjoy those relationships to the fullest” (Conversations: The Message Bible and Its Translator). 

Help us, Lord, 

to “walk in the all the way that you have commanded us, 

that we may live, and that it may go well with us…” (Deuteronomy 5:33).

In Jesus’ commandment-keeping name. Amen.

Read Deuteronomy 5:1-33.