Nothing but God – The First Commandment

Nothing but God

Exodus 20:2, 3

“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.”

God’s power is revealed in that neither the forces of Pharaoh nor of all hell can keep Him from His purpose of making us His own children. How gracious and faithful, how powerful and kind is the God who redeems us and calls us to Himself! Is it not altogether reasonable to focus all our devotion and all our service on this faithful, gracious, powerful, and good Savior and God? Like Israel, we often allow ourselves to become slaves to things which end up possessing us, depriving us of our liberty, stripping us of our joy, and leaving us crying out to God for deliverance from our self-imposed misery and separation from Him. Nothing can satisfy the deep needs of our souls but God. He knows that, and He wants us to know it as well.

Do you ever feel “enslaved” to something that you thought would make you happy, but instead only compounds your disappointment and misery? Is this a cue, warning that you might be focusing your devotion on something other than God?

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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.