No Other gods

“You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).

As many of you already recognize this is Commandment #1 of the Ten Commandments.

Seems simple enough. Right?

Why would we want any other gods? After all, we know that God is the “LORD our God, who brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). God is the one who saves us, rescues us, delivers us, and guides us. So, why would we ever want any other gods?

You know, when we think about “other gods” we often think idols or something like that. We know very few people who have idols in their homes. No one we know prays to an idol, let alone worship an idol.

And this is exactly what the devil wants us to believe. Since we don’t have figurines or idols in our homes, the devil wants us to believe that we are not idolaters. The devil wants us to believe that we have no other gods.

Here’s the thing. What God is talking about in the first commandment has little to do with figurines and has much to do with what/who calls the shots when it comes to how we live our lives, how we spend our time, how we invest our finances, and how we make decisions. While most of us may not have figurines or idols in our homes, we certainly have value systems that want to shape how we make decisions about time, money, values, sex, etc.

That’s what God calls “other gods.” Anyone or anything other that God himself who impacts our decision making regarding time, money, sex, values, etc. is “other gods.”

And when it comes to “other gods,” the devil really doesn’t care what we replace the centrality and the sufficiency of God with – as long as we replace God with something else.

So, let’s think about this again – “You shall have no other gods before me.”

God and God alone gets to dictate what is right, what is good, and how we should live.

May that be so with us.