“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me”…The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was (Exodus 20:2-3, 21).

During my college days, I was a camp counselor at Grace Bible Camp. One of my privileges was to do cabin devotions and talk to teens about Jesus. One of my campers was really struggling with reconciling the God of the Old and New Testaments. When she would read a passage like Exodus 20, all she could see was God giving a list of rules and commands to the people. 

She felt like the Israelites in verses 18-19. “When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, ‘Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die’.’” 

I know Moses saw God differently than the rest of the people. After the Israelites said those fear-filled words, Moses told them not to be afraid.  All of the commands God gave to the people were not meant to be punitive but were part of God’s covenant of love. 

God saw people who needed help and direction for their lives as they were journeying toward the Promised Land. The first four commandments He gave focused on loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The last six had to do with loving others as ourselves. He knew that by following these commandments, their lives (and ours) would be richer, deeper, freer, and more full of joy. He also wanted to build a community of dedicated followers who would present and represent Him to the world.

In His omniscience, He knew that the Israelites, like us, would never be able to keep all of the commandments and that their disobedience would result in death. I think even that was an act of love. The Israelites (and we today) needed to recognize that they could never measure up on their own. They could never be good enough to earn God’s favor. While that may seem bleak at first, it helps us to put everything into the correct perspective. We need God.

When we recognize we can never work our way to Heaven or keep all ten commandments, it humbles us. It’s then that we can see that God – even from the time of our Creation—was creating a plan to save us.  A plan that would evaluate us according to His Holiness, not ours. Unlike the Israelites, we know that this plan was fulfilled in Jesus. 

Have you ever struggled to balance both the holiness and grace of God? While I don’t remember what I said to that camper, I hope it went something like this: Remember that He is the same faithful God of both the Old and New Testaments. He is the God of thunder and lightning and the Prince of Peace. And as we strive to follow Him, we can rest assured that He will be faithful whether or not we reciprocate. However, the more we obey, the closer we will get to a Promised Land life.