The First Commandment – No Other Gods

The First Commandment

No other gods

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

Ephesians 5:15-17; Colossians 4:6

Love for God comes to expression through the exertions of our body–what our text refers to as “might.” These are of two sorts: speaking and doing. The Scriptures abound in teaching concerning each of these; thus, there is more involved to loving God in word and deed than we can consider here.

We have been redeemed unto good works (Eph. 2:10); we show our love for God by studying to learn and working to practice all He describes as expressions of speech and word that are consistent with love for Him. Certainly if we love God with all our soul, from within, it will be easier to love Him with our strength, for what we do will effectively and efficiently flow from the kind of people we are.

Similarly, as we show love for God in words and deeds, such practices reinforce our inward convictions, making us firmer and more convinced of the love we have for God in our inner being, and, thus, more likely to show that love consistently in our lives. A symbiosis of inward and outward transformation, oriented around and motivated by love for God, thus brings the commandments of God–holy and righteous and good–into flesh before the watching world.

In this series of In the Gates we present a detailed explanation of the Law of God, beginning with the Ten Commandments, and working through the statutes and rules that accompany each commandment. For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the practice of ethics, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.MyParuchia.com and click on our Book Store.

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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.