The Big Ten (Commandments) – Part 1
In the Ten Commandments God begins with two regarding our prioritizing God as first place in our life, have no other gods before me, and do not make idols to worship. When most 21st century God fearing people read this we think, “You shall have no other gods before me…well I believe there is only one God, and I don’t believe in other gods so I must be good. And I don’t carve any images to represent God and worship that object as God so, again, I am good.” Except the truth is we do worship other gods before God, we do have idols we worship perhaps not as God, but we worship before God. In fact, that is what an idol is, something we worship and prioritize before God. Before we get too bent out of shape, ask yourself, what are you doing when you don’t attend worship on Sunday morning (or whenever your faith community gathers)? Are you fishing or hunting? Are you sleeping in? Are you playing a video game? Are you watching the game or catching up on our favorite program on TV? There is nothing wrong with any of these in and of themselves, but when we prioritize it above God it is our idol. No we didn’t create it, no we don’t bow down to it literally as God, but it is our object of worship. It is our idol. I would argue that we actually have more idols that we worship today then when the Ten Commandments were written. Sure they aren’t necessarily physical graven images representing God, or a god, but they are nevertheless idols and take our hearts away from God. And the number one idol we worship is “myself”, my desires, my interests, my preferences.
Someone could argue, “God is full of himself and wants all attention to himself.” well, God is our Creator and Creator of the universe, so he certainly could demand it. But when we realize that God loves us more than we can comprehend, and when we align and prioritize God and God’s priorities in the correct order, we find that the rest of our life is actually much better, we are blessed because we are operating according to the way God designed us. This isn’t about God having an ego lift, or being egocentric, or being like a dictator demanding absolute loyalty while the dictator himself is cruel or unjust, it is about being in covenant relationship with God, and him demonstrating his love to us. God is helping us live the way we were designed and created to live according to God’s plan. When the Lord God is our God and we are in loving relationship with him, we should desire to put him and his priorities first.
Ask, what am I prioritizing before God (including such times as worship, devotional, prayer time)? Are there gods or idols we need to lay aside or destroy because they are taking God’s place and therefore throwing our relationship with God and our designed priorities out of whack, and therefore causing us not to live to our full potential?