No Other Gods Before Me

(Airdate July 25, 2004)
Today I want to discuss the most important commandment given in scripture, found in Exodus 20:3.

 Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.

Jesus emphasized this passage in Matthew 22:37-38.

Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.”

What is a commandment? 
The dictionary says it is “an authoritative mandate, edict or order.” 

There is a saying: “If voluntary compliance had worked, Moses would have come down the mountain with Ten Guidelines.”

 However, none of the commandments is optional.

 Ever bought something that came with options? You can choose a car with or without leather interior, or power doors and windows.  Commandments, however, are not optional; they stand just as they are. As the billboards say, “What part of ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before Me’ don’t you understand?’”

What are some things that might potentially become “other gods” that we put before the One True God?  I don’t personally know anyone who worships an actual, physical idol.  But I know what I’ve struggled with—and have seen others struggle with—when it comes to putting God above all the other “stuff” in life.

Pride
Did you know that pride can keep us from a wonderful relationship with God?  Pride is the opposite of humility, and it prevents us from relinquishing ourselves to His control.  Pride can also make us so worried about what other people think or say, that these thoughts fill the place God should own in our lives.

Do we love the praise of people more than the approval of Heaven?  If so, that isn’t freedom—it keeps us from fulfilling His will for our lives.  Moses overcame his people-pleasing tendencies, and was soon at the heart of God’s plan to deliver Israel from slavery.  Gideon was the same; he chose God’s plan and became a mighty judge and deliverer for Israel.

Security
We can get so comfortable where we are, that we don’t budge when God, who knows best, says it’s time to move.  It’s tough to leave that comfort zone, and make sacrifices, trading the security blanket for a real move of God and real spiritual growth.

 Abraham left his country to travel to a place about which he knew nothing, except that God had told him,

Get thee out of thy country and go…

Because he obeyed, Abraham found his destiny as the father of a great nation.

Family
We can dedicate so much time to entertaining our families that we shove God out.  We don’t go to His house on Sundays because that’s when we take the kids fishing or swimming.  We work all week, so the Enemy makes us feel guilty, and we think the only way to make it up to our families is to spend quality time with them anywhere but at church. 

 On the surface, spending time with family is fantastic.  In reality, however, if you aren’t being fed spiritually, chances are, neither are your children. Ultimately, their relationships with Him will get them through the difficulties of life, long after you’re gone.

We used to sing, “Sweet hour of prayer,” and then it was “Just a Little Talk With Jesus.”  Now we’re lucky if we just “whisper a prayer in the morning.”  Jesus says in Matthew 10:37:

He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and he who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

Employment
We can get so involved in our jobs that we forget God.  We might go all day without a single thought of what He would do, or what He wants.  So take Him to the office with you!  Take Him to the plant floor, to the house you’re building, to the hospital rooms.  Regardless of your occupation, God is still first. If He can’t go with you to work, you don’t need to be there.  The rest of the world meditates on workaholism, on getting head, on power and progress, but His disciples did—and should still—meditate on the coming kingdom, and keep that perspective of eternity.

It was a recent fad to wear WWJD jewelry.  Which was ironic, because many people who wore that stuff had no clue what Jesus would actually do.  Their concept of who He is was so distorted and unscriptural that they’d wear WWJD jewelry while going places they shouldn’t have been, watching things they shouldn’t have watched, and living in ways that offended the Holy Spirit.

 Try to think instead, “What would I do if Jesus walked into this room right now?”

 News flash:  He’s already in the room now!

Self
Romans 12:1 says,

I beseech you, therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service.

You may have sung that song, “Make my life a living sacrifice,” but this isn’t exactly God’s job. According to the Scripture you just read, it’s your job.

You might say, “It’s my life! I’m going to do…”  But if you’re a Christian, it isn’t your life—“no other gods.” You, the precious one, were bought with a price that didn’t come cheap. 

On July 4, Americans celebrate the freedom that cost many lives—so celebrate the freedom in Christ that cost Him everything!

 Some of us spend more time laying out in the sun or the tanning beds than we spend basking in the True Son. We eat when we’re hungry (and often when we aren’t). We bathe and scrub our bodies until we shine, and put on makeup and jewelry to enhance our beauty, and buy clothes to look the best we can, because we think this fixes things.

 All while He stands outside the door knocking, saying, “Please, open the door.”  We are consumed with self-help books, some of which I’ve read, and do you know what I found-an elevated sense of ourselves. One tape told me to look into the mirror and say, “I am beautiful, I am intelligent, I am powerful.”

 This is a far cry from Isaiah’s self-examination in the Bible. In the light of God’s glory and presence, he simply cried, “Woe is me!  I am undone!” (Isaiah 6.)   “No other gods” means that when you have done all you can, and you come to the end of yourself you will have everything you need if God is first.

 Who, in Scripture, made a good example of putting God first?

Moses was 80 years old when God called him. He was still living in Midian and initially felt reluctant. But he eventually left everything and followed God’s plan. He actually saw God’s glory in Exodus 24:16 to 25:1. At first, for six days, God’s glory was like a fire in the top of the mountain. And on the seventh day, God called Moses up to see Him.

Don’t get too impatient to have the glory without the waiting!

Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego also put God first. All they had to do to prevent being torn to pieces or burned alive was back off the “no other gods before Me” thing.  But no, Daniel prayed to the God of Heaven three times a day and was thrown into a den of lions. The other three Hebrews refused to bow to the image of Nebuchadnezzar, and were thrown into a blazing furnace. They said, “Our God is able to deliver us from the furnace, but if not, we will not serve your gods, O king.” They refused to put anything above Jehovah God, and all of them were delivered from death.

Although David wasn’t ashamed to sing and dance before the Lord even when his own wife made fun of him, he responded that he was willing to become even more undignified in the eyes of the people, in order to be a true worshiper.

John the Baptist, Paul, Peter, James and Stephen are good examples of those who gave everything. Each man gave his life to tell the story of what Jesus had done to save us from sin and death, and they let nothing stand between them and the One True God they adored. Christians all over the world reap the benefits of those decisions today, one of which is the New Testament!

Dietrich Bonheoffer was a German minister during World War II.  He openly defied Hitler’s propaganda because it defied the teachings of Jesus. He was given a chance to leave Germany in 1944 but remained, for fear that his family would become targets in his absence. He stated that he could not enjoy freedom knowing his brothers and sisters in Christ were in peril. Bonheoffer was hanged at age 39. He once said, “We must face the truth that the call of Christ does surely put a barrier between man and his natural life.”

God is calling us higher to a life fully committed with no other gods before Him. Sure, we sing things like, “I want to know You, I want to hear Your voice,” and “You’re all I want, You’re all I’ve ever needed,” but then cannot be pleased with even a thousand blessings.

 Now is the time to re-prioritize. We are fools if we think our next breath is guaranteed. One April day, students in Littleton, Colorado went to school expecting a day like any other, but that was far from the real outcome.  One September day, employees went to work in the Twin Towers expecting meetings, coffee and paperwork, but that’s not what happened.

 We never know, do we, what a day will bring? Let God have your heart today, and your life as well! Do you really love Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength?  Is He truly Lord of all?  Are you ready to obey His commandment, regardless of the cost?

 Or is Jesus, like the famous painting that shows Him standing outside the door, knocking, waiting for you to open up?

Jeanne Modisett
Heart to Heart, WLX