Studying God's Word
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“You shall have no other gods.”
The First Commandment
The eight-year-old boy protested when his Sunday school teacher said that no one keeps God’s commandments perfectly. “I do,” he asserted, as his face beamed with pride. “I go to church. I obey my parents. I haven’t killed anyone, and I don’t steal.”
That bold but misguided student gave voice to the natural inclination in all of us. We each take fleeting glances at the Ten Commandments and think to ourselves, “I’m not so bad.” Yes, God might have good reason to be angry with “other sinners” who blatantly disregard his law, but not with us! We’re the good people! We try hard! We go to church! We don’t kill or steal! That’s all God really expects from us, right?
Wrong! God expects, even demands, total devotion from us. He wants us to be perfect in everything we think, say, and do. The sad truth is that we cannot even keep the First Commandment. Oh, we don’t worship handcrafted idols made from wood and stone. We don’t honor imaginary spirits or wing our prayers haphazardly to a generic cosmic force. We gather for worship “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Yet even we Christians have “other gods.”
Martin Luther observed that a “god” is really anything on which we set our hearts—anything in which we trust. Consider how easily we turn money into a god. Are we happy only when our bank accounts are healthy? Do we live in despair when our wallets are empty? We often turn money or friendships or personal happiness into a god. We often shatter the First Commandment.
God will not share his glory with anyone or anything. God wants to be first and requires that we love him more than we love our parents or children and, yes, more than we love ourselves. He wants us to trust him more than we trust in money, more than we trust in human technology, more than we trust in our own abilities and intellect. The First Commandment shows us how miserably we fail to fear, love, and trust in God above all things. The Sunday school teacher was right to say, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
Thank God that Jesus succeeded where we fail! Jesus always kept his heavenly Father first. Christ’s First Commandment obedience is credited to us by faith. The perfect Jesus poured out his innocent blood to wash away all our sins, including our daily sins against the First Commandment.
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Because
of Jesus, the First Commandment becomes the greatest guide for our hearts. He is
our greatest treasure. He is to be feared. He is to be trusted. He deserves our
love and won’t
settle for less from us. He is so good and gracious to those who believe in Him.
Through His grace in Christ He’s
changed our hearts. We don’t
want any other God. “We
love because he first loved us”
(1 John 4:19).
Pastor Tom