Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13 KJV)

What greatest gift have you ever given to your spouse or friend? Or what greatest gift have you ever received from your spouse or friend? If it is love for self-pressured, then your love for that person would have deadline. Your love would become useless. It is sad thing for me to hear that the American churches are more into selling themselves to the world as greatest evangelists rather than working as God’s servants for His lost people.

Even though I’m not against the works of evangelism, there are many preachers out in other countries for fame, power, and wealth. As we see today, many people have learned that giving money to the television ministries are the ways to receive their gift of blessings from God. The works of ministries are not about getting fortune, but they are about reaching the lost souls to Jesus Christ. Put away our own desire moment and start thinking how to bless other people in our communities with using God-given talents and skills. Apostle Paul said in Philippians 2:4, “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”

The greatest gift that we ever received from God was the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for our sins. Jesus didn’t say in John 15:13 to glorify Himself. No! He tried to teach His disciples about the value of friendship. Proverbs 17:10 says, “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

Jesus did the only thing for us that no other gods can do. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).” Allah, Krishna , Buddha, or Virgin Mary didn’t die for our sins. Even though God let Virgin Mary to be the mother of His Son, Jesus, she lived as we are living. She didn’t have any special divine power or wasn’t sinless. But God choose her to bring forth His Son to the world.

If we read Luke 1-2, the angels of God didn’t start to appear to rich people to bring the announcement to the world, but to the shepherds. Even though God loves and cares for everybody, He especially is looking for unfortunate people in spirits.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 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… (Exodus 20:3-5 KJV)

The first Ten Commandments are basic structure of relationship with God and humanity. But if we look at the first three, we notice that we should have no other gods, except Him, to worship. To have relationship with Him, we need to throw our gods away and falling unto His knees.

Now it’s almost to Christmas (Christ’s Mass) time of the year. We often time busy ourselves to ready for the holiday. In this time of the year, we sometime forget to give honor and glory to our Lord Jesus Christ.

To have relationship with Jesus Christ, we’d need to have right mindset of relationship with God. The Ten Commandments are telling us how much God wants to love and take care of us, rather than laying down some restriction laws for us to follow.

What other gods we have to displease our God? John tells us in I John 2:15-16, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” One of examples that God displeases is if we’d decide to display the Christmas tree in our homes. This reference came from Jeremiah 10, when God’s people followed the ritual traditions of Babylon when they were in captivity.

In Exodus 34:14 told us, “For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God…” Jesus told us in Matthew 6:24, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

Do you have relationship with God? Or is money or things in the world considered as gods? We can have Islamic faiths, but we cannot have lovely relationship with Allah. Instead, we have to do the religious duties, such as pray five times a day and learn to be enemies to Jews and Christians, to reach our relationship with Allah. Unfortunately, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel doesn’t require these religious rituals from us. Instead, God brought down His Son, Jesus, to be sacrificial offering for our sins by dying on the Cross. But Jesus resurrected on the third day to live in us.