Have No Other Gods

Exodus 20:1-3, “And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.”

This is the opening to one of the most well known passages of the Bible, the Ten Commandments. Most of us are probably fairly familiar with this passage. “You shall have no other gods before me,” is the first of the Ten Commandments, and, as is commonly the case with the first of a list, is of particular importance.

You may be like me when you hear or read that and automatically think, “Well of course, I keep that commandment because I do not worship any other gods – I believe in and worship only the true God of the Bible. I do not worship any of the mythical gods of the Greeks, or the Native Americans, or the Phoenicians, or any of the other gods that have been worshiped throughout the ages, so I keep the first commandment, right?”

Not so fast. There are many gods that we can have instead of the one true God. The gods that we can have instead do not have to be mythical gods of antiquity. Anything that we worship, in other words, anything that we place such a high value on or importance to that takes the place of the worship that we ought to give God, becomes a god to us. And this leads us into a whole lot of things that might start to hit close to home, both personally and culturally.

For example, take the worship of nature. And no, this does not mean that we are literally bowing down to a beautiful waterfall or to an impressive mountain cliff; it means that we are placing so much value on nature that we are displacing the value that we ought to be reserving for God alone.

How about the worship of pleasure? If we are pursuing pleasure over God, we are breaking the first commandment.

How about ourselves? Our hobbies? Our jobs? Our families? Our friends? Just about anything can become a god that takes away from our proper worship of God alone.

These can be very good things, which, kept in their right perspective, are wonderful to enjoy and spend time with, can lead to a greater quality of life for both us and those around us, and may foster healthy growth and maturity in our lives. Even the love of our nation the United States of America can become a god to us.

When I think of making America great again, and whether you think America is or ever was great, I hope we all would agree that striving to improve America is a worthy goal to have. But making America great should not be the ultimate goal; bringing glory to God and proclaiming His goodness, mercy, truth, judgment and love should be the ultimate goal.

When we keep that in perspective, all these other possible gods will stay within their proper role in our lives.