The first part of the second command is the obvious one, which is: don't have statues of other Gods in your house. Don't carry pictures of your old boyfriends around, this sort of concept.
But the deeper concept, for those of us who've gotten past that, is this: don't live your life with God being here, but not here. God needs to be with us everywhere. For us to live the best life, we need to walk in a constant awareness that: the Mighty One is with me; right now He's with me, just now, the Mighty One is with me now. He's with me now, and He could do mighty things through me.
Whatever Jesus did, He could do through me; because I'm not a big shot - I'm a very small shot, with a big shot living in me. It's God in me, that God is my life. In the Hebrew language, there is no word, not one word, for ‘spiritual’; or for 'spiritual life'. That's something we made up, this idea that: this part of our life is a spiritual life; that part of our life is a natural life.
No, no, your whole life is spirit. Your whole life is spiritual, because you're a spirit. We spend forever trying to make our natural man spiritual; but you can't make a natural man spiritual, your whole life is spiritual. Everything you do is spiritual, everything to the smallest minute detail - it's all spiritual; and so where is God?
How big is He? What limits or boxes do you put around God, and say: God has to operate in this? How can you box breath? I think God messes with people's heads! In the scriptures, and every time a man tried to get his head around what God was, He just said - He gave him things you can't box up: I'm breath; I'm wind - can't do that.
He describes Himself as two things. Physics says: Force equals Mass times Acceleration; but God describes Himself as things that have infinite force, but no weight. He said things like: I'm light. Light weighs nothing; but a laser can cut through steel.
Infinite force, no weight; God says: that's Me, I'm an anomaly. I don't obey - I make the rules - that's Me.
He said: “I'm the word”. Words have infinite force; but no weight? Oh a word: I hate you - infinite force, no weight. I love you - infinite force, no weight. God said: I'm that. I have infinite force, but I can't be measured. You can't put a box around Me. A word has infinite force, but no weight? That's the word.
So the commandment is two things. On the surface it's: don't worship man-made things; but underneath that is: don't try to represent Me with anything you can create.
Observation: 1) while He was getting this command, the people were down there already - making an idol! It was just ‘in them’, to need something to worship - an object. God is trying to get across, that in order to have the best life: we have to walk with an awareness of God - that He is bigger than anything we can ever imagine.
Let me give you a couple of ways to say that...
1) Don't try to make me Manageable. God's saying: don't try to ‘manage’ me - you can't manage me! I'm things like: light; and word; and mercy; and wind.
2) Don't try to define me to a Location. Don't try to make me live here, and not here - that's not Me.
You realise this was antithetical to every major culture in the world. Every major culture in the world, at that point - their Gods lived in temples, and they built things to represent them.
God says: I'm so much bigger than that, you can't even imagine it, can't even imagine it. Don't put Me in a place where you could be with Me, or without Me. I am your life.
What boxes do I have for God? What boxes do I make God fit in? Only you know the answer.
Here are some boxes: He's in heaven - God's in heaven.
You know the idea that ‘God is in heaven’ is exactly what this command is trying to get us not to do? Don't define me to a location. I'm everywhere. What God would, and wouldn't do - we have all of these things. This is different for every culture, and this command takes care of all others.
If God is the centre of our life: you wouldn't steal - because you trust God; you wouldn't murder - because you believe God will take vengeance; you won’t covet - because you have God at the centre. To take God out of the centre - it ruins everything else.