The First Commandment - No Other Gods

Exodus 20:2-3 - "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other God's before Me."

A Jealous God

This is the first of the Ten Commandments, and it cuts right to the heart of true obedience. It asks the question: Who's in charge? Do we get to decide what's important in our lives, or is that something only God has the authority to decide?

Literally translated, the phrase "no other gods before Me" means this: "Don't have any other gods in My face." God is very jealous for you - for your time, for your energy, for your devotion. In fact, two verses after this, God reveals His name as El Qanna - "The Jealous God".

God is jealous for you - He refuses to share you with anything! He actually has the audacity to tell you, "It's either all of you or nothing!" How could he be so demanding?

We think of jealousy as a bad thing...as if it were the same thing as envy. But, while envy is a desire and longing for something that's not yours,  jealousy is the desire for someone that is yours. This can be seen the from the only two situations where jealousy is mentioned in the Bible - between a husband and wife, and between God and His people.

Look at Exodus 20:2 again:

"I am the LORD your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."

God saved Israel from a land of slavery and brought them out into freedom. He rescued them from the army of a king that wanted them all dead. Once he brought them through the Red Sea, God continued to protect and provide for them in the desert. After all of this...didn't God deserve Israel's worship and service?

Now think of all He's done for you. He left Heaven and became a man. As a man, He died a horrific death that He didn't deserve - just to pay the price for your sin. He loved You when you didn't care about Him. He saved you from the power of Satan when you didn't even know Satan existed. He adopted you, brought you into His family, gave you all the great promises of Scripture, and the power to live righteously.

After all of that...couldn't you spend a few minutes, just to talk to Him?

Giving God's Time To Something Else

According to a recent church poll, 59% of professing Christians say they read the Bible "occasionally." Only 16% of American Christians in this poll could say that they read the Bible daily. Despite everything God has done for them, despite the Bible being a best seller year after year, and despite their claim to be devoted to their savior - Out of every 25 Christians, only four actually spend any daily time in God's Word!

And what do you suppose is the American Christian's number one excuse for not spending time with God?

Well, if you were to ask them three weeks before I wrote this post, they would  probably say something like this:

"Life is too busy, I don't have time to stop and pray like I should!"

Or maybe, "I've got too much going on to just sit down and read the Bible!"

But now, with most Americans stuck at home, and with nothing else to do...how much has that Bible study and prayer life grown? Chances are...we still haven't given God any more of our time that we did before. I can say this because the first set of numbers have come in...Internet use has skyrocketed 170% in the last month. Games, Video Streaming, and Social Media have all replaced the "busy-ness" of life before Corona.

May I suggest to you, that being "too busy" was never a legitimate reason for any Christian to ignore the Savior who loves them so much!

Anything that steals God's time with you is another god...set up right in His face! It doesn't have to be "sinful" by itself to be wrong. There's nothing sinful about watching (clean) TV shows or browsing through friends on social media. But when anything or anyone begins to invade that intimate, one-on-one time with God...it begins to make Him jealous for you.

Giving God's Devotion To Someone Else

I love my wife...madly. I am head-over-heels crazy about her! She is my favorite person in this life, and my love for her dwarfs any attachment I have for other people. I lay down my life every day, just to care for her and to make her know how I feel toward her.

But...she DOES NOT override anything God has said in His word. (She knows this...and she says the same about me!) If I ever decided to compromise what God said to make her happy, then I've set her up as another god.  As God's own people, we can't do that with anyone. We have to keep HIM first. We cannot let our attachment to someone else nullify our commitment to God.

What do I mean by that?

Well think about this, how often have you heard Christians say things like:

"I can't go to church on Sundays, that's my family time."

"I know God's asking me to give my tithe, but I was planning on taking my family to dinner with that."

"I'm not going to talk about Jesus at my parent's house, it might cause problems."

Statements like these will show where our true devotion lies. Of course God wants us to love our family and friends. But that love should never put HIM on the backburner! Our love for others should never come at the expense of our love for God. 

God first....others second.

Taking God's Rights Into My Own Hands

There's more to this commandment than our time and our devotion, God also is jealous toward our decisions. He hates it when anything else in our life overrules what He said. He wants the final word about everything that we do!

No believer should make decisions based only on money, fear, pressure, or self-interest. Every decision in our lives should be guided by God and His Word. And I do mean every decision:

 - Where you live

 - How much you give

 - How you treat your family

 - How often you go to church

 - Even what you do for fun

Every choice you face in life should be decided by God's Word. 

This is where your devotion and time spent with Him pays off! The more time you spend in the pages of Scripture, the easier it will be to know what decisions He wants you to make.

A Choice

So the choice is yours now. Are you going to follow the same half-hearted path that most of American Christianity is on? Are you going to keep calling Jesus "Lord", and then reserve the rights to your own life? Are you going to keep your other gods that are standing in the face of your Savior? Or are you - once and for all - going to give yourself completely to the God who saved you?

Joshua 24:15 NIrV - "But maybe you don't want to serve the LORD. You must choose for yourselves today. Today you must decide who you will serve. Will you serve the gods that your ancestors worshiped when they lived on the other side of the Euphrates river? [that is, the way your family has always done things] Or will you serve the gods of the Amorites who live in this land? [that is, the way everyone else does things] 

You must choose for yourselves. But as for me and my family, we will serve the LORD."