Ever before His Face

Ever before His Face

Exodus 20:3; Deuteronomy 5:7

“…You shall have no other gods before me.”

God commands His people to “have” Him, which is to enjoy an eternal relationship of love, trust, and obedience with the God Who graciously redeems and takes us to Himself. To “have” God is to pursue Him as earnestly as He pursues us, setting aside all other “gods” and counsel as false and unreliable.

Third, to “have” God is to do so conscious of His presence with us and us with Him. God keeps His people and all their doings “before His face.” Everything is open to the eye of Him with Whom we have to do (1 Pet. 3:12; Heb. 4:13). All human beings are continuously in His sight, benefiting from His steadfast love and faithfulness.

Moreover, God guards His people continually and never sleeps (Ps. 121). Thus, they should be mindful of taking unto themselves anything other than God as objects of devotion and trust, for He will certainly see, and, in mercy and love, He will certainly act to discipline His wayward children (Heb. 12:7-12).

Further, they should work to know as fully as possible the presence of God and to live before Him in such a way as to honor and please Him. We exist “before” Him and should demonstrate our love for Him by the way we conduct our everyday lives.

God takes His people unto Himself, devoting Himself to their entire care and provision; He expects the same in return from a people grateful to exist, to be sustained and provided for, to have been redeemed, and to have been constituted as a special people unto the Lord of heaven and earth (1 Pet. 2:9, 10).

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.