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Deuteronomy 5.6, 7
6 “‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 7 You shall have no other gods before Me.’”
We are considering what it means to “have” God as our God. We saw, in the first place, that this part of the first commandment is give to remind and warn us of our natural sinful tendencies to aim our devotion other than at our Creator and Redeemer God.
Second, God regards all creatures and things, other than Himself, as “gods”, albeit, false ones, when His people ascribe to or seek from them the blessings they daily enjoy. Here we must not think only in terms of pagan deities or the false gods of major religions, past or present. Whatever human beings turn to in order to secure the blessings of God through their own hands are gods, after a fashion. This also implies that all worldviews other than that which God reveals in His Word are, in the nature of the case, religions, since they focus on unseen promises, give devotion to supposedly ultimate powers, and engender rituals and routines designed to engage those powers for those unseen but hoped-for ends. Made in the image of God, all human beings have a sense of transcendence and of the ultimate good, toward which they strive in order to achieve wellbeing.
God would have His people know that He will tolerate no other gods, of any kind, as objects of His people’s devotion and service. God requires exclusive devotion to His Name, in the form of love and service, from those He has redeemed, because He knows that only thus will they find the full and abundant life they seek.
One implication of such devotion is that we who have been redeemed would seek no other word or law by which to live than that which our eternal and loving God provides for us. To have God involves taking His Word to heart and working out the salvation He has accomplished for us through obedience to His Law (Phil. 2.12, 13; Matt. 5.17-19; 1 Jn. 2.1-6; Rom. 3.31; etc.).
T. M. Moore
The Law of God is the soil which, fertilized by the rest of God’s Word and watered by His Spirit, brings forth the fruit of Christian life. If you’d like to understand this process better, and how to make best use of the Law in your walk with and work for the Lord, order the book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, from our online store.
Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.