Description
Exploring the First Commandment: What Gods Are You Placing Before God?
Join us as we begin a miniseries on the Ten Comm… (visit YouTube for more)
Transcript
Is there only one God? Well, yes and no. Now, before you dismiss me as a heretic, let’s look at this verse together that we’re going to meditate on today as we start a miniseries on the Ten Commandments. It’s Exodus chapter 20, verse three, which says: You shall have no other gods before me.
Now this is God himself speaking, and he says, no other gods, little g. So that implies that we may have in our lives other things that are gods, small g, not the real God, that we place before God. And he doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like that when the Israelites did it and he doesn’t like it when we do it. Because he is the one true God. He is a jealous God. He’s not going to share his glory with anyone or anything else.
So we should look at our lives, shouldn’t we, and say, what does this verse mean for me? What gods am I placing ahead of my Saviour God?
For example, there seems to be a modern trend of doing other things on Sunday rather than going to church. What could be more important, my friends, than spending time with other believers proclaiming and worshipping the name of God together. Do we have other gods in place of our real God?
What do we spend our times thinking about? What concerns us most in life? Is that something we’re placing above? God? Is our reputation more important to us than our relationship with God? Is money, friendships, power, health?
Are any of these things more important to us than God? If so, we just need to repent. Lay down those things. Make sure that God is on his throne in our lives.
Because although this was a message to the Israelites, this is part of God’s moral character as revealed to us, and the moral character of the universe in which there can only be one God, the Trinity God, the Father, son, and Holy Spirit. One God,
not three.
And so it’s worthwhile us continuing meditating on this verse and asking ourselves, what idols have we created that are taking the place of God?
