Tuesday, June 13, 2023

Listen to the Word

And God spoke all these words: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”    (Exodus 20:1-3)

The temptation to worship other gods was a very real problem for the people who first heard the First Commandment. They lived in an environment in which every nation, tribe, and neighborhood had its own god, and they were constantly fighting the urge to replace or supplement the worship of the LORD with the worship of other gods. But is this temptation still real today?

We may assume we are off the hook. After all, you know there is only one God. You’ve probably never once been tempted to worship Baal or Ra; you’ve never prayed to Zeus or Apollo. But we still have competing gods. Sometimes we worship money. A relationship with another person can slide into the top spot in our lives. We can begin to live for our job or school. A smartphone can become our god (I can envision aliens observing us from afar, recognizing that many people seem to pay more attention to the small rectangle in their hand than to the people around them, and assuming that those devices must have some sort of religious significance). Anything that bumps the LORD from his place of priority is for you a competing god.

Live the Word

What would you say is God’s primary competition in your life right now? Confess it to him, and ask him to remind you today that he is more central than that other thing.