No Other Gods – The Kingdom Curriculum V (1)

No Other Gods

“You shall have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20.3; Deuteronomy 5:7

“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God…” Deuteronomy 10.12

To “have” God is to fear Him.

The first commandment forbids “having” any other gods besides the Lord our God. Actually, the Hebrew language does not include a word “to have” in the same way that we use it. In order to make this emphasis, Hebrew uses a prepositional phrase: “to you.” Thus, the first commandment says, “To you shall be no other gods besides Me.” God is all we need, and He intends to be with us, for us, in us, and the focus of all we are and do. It makes perfect sense for us to cling only to God, for He is our Redeemer, Who has purchased us by the blood of His Son out of the bondage of sin into the liberty of His Kingdom and glory.

Anything to which we attribute the kind of ultimate importance that God alone possesses can be regarded as a god. The gods of our secular neighbors can take a variety of forms: the pursuit of happiness, wealth, fame, power, possessions, or sensual experience, for example. When such things become so important that they command the bulk of our time and attention, and steal our affections and strength, they have become “gods”, for they have taken the place in our hearts, minds, and strength that God reserves for Himself alone.

So God commands us to “have” only Him. But what does this mean? How do we “have” God? He tells us in the accompanying text we’ll be examining all this week. When God is our God in the manner He intends, we will fear Him, walk with Him, love Him, serve Him, guard His Law, and keep ourselves free of attachment to any other pretended deities. When we do, we will know the good pleasure and purposes of God.

Thus, in “having” God as our God we must first learn to fear Him. This seems like a hard place to begin a relationship. But, after all, God is sovereign, eternal, almighty, and altogether just and holy. We, on the other hand, are just the opposite; therefore, we ought by right to fall under His wrath. To fear God is thus to hold in our hearts a clear understanding of Who He is, coupled with a proper sense of how we ought to regard Him: with fear.

Fear is not the last word in “having” God; it is, however, the first.

Be sure to order your copy of The Law of God by going to www.MyParuchia.com and clicking on Publications, then Waxed Tablet. Begin to make daily reading and meditation in God’s Law part of your discipline of the Word (Ps. 94:12-15).

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“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.