No Other Gods

Weekly Devotion

"You shall have no other gods before Me." Exodus 20:3

Since the LORD God is our Maker and Redeemer, we should have no other gods before His face. And, since He is present everywhere and sees all, this means we are to have no other gods but Him!

He is the only true God; and we should "fear, love and trust in Him above all things" (Martin Luther's SMALL CATECHISM). We should remember that God is the Almighty Creator and honor Him as such! We should obey His commandments and avoid all that displeases Him.

Because the LORD God is our Maker and also our Redeemer, we have every reason to love Him with all our heart, soul and mind and gladly live our lives for Him (cf. Matthew 22:37; 2 Corinthians 5:15). Since God has so wonderfully made us and provided for all our needs, and since He has through Christ's sufferings, death and resurrection, redeemed us from our sins and the eternal punishment we so deserve, we should also trust in Him with all our heart and commit our entire lives to His care and keeping.

Have we done this? We must all admit our utter failure, for we so often neglect Him and push Him out of our lives as though He did not exist. Instead of giving Him the honor due His name as our Maker and our Judge, we take His Word lightly and ignore and disobey His commandments which He gave to us for our good (cf. Romans 7:10ff.).

Every time we sin against any commandment of the LORD, we are also failing to fear, love and trust in God above all things. We think and act as though we ourselves know better than God. We place ourselves, other people and even things of this world before the loving God who gave us life in our mother's womb and won for us everlasting life in Christ Jesus, our Savior. We fail to give to Him the glory and honor due unto His name! Cf. Psalm 96.

And what is the punishment for disobeying God's command? Is it a slap on the wrist or the eternal punishment of hell? The Bible says: "The soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:20); and, "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death" (Revelation 21:8).

How thankful we can be that God has not turned His back on us as we so often have done to Him! Though we have forgotten Him, He has not forgotten us. Though we have rebelled and disobeyed, He still kept His word and promise and has given to us His only-begotten Son to be our Savior. Christ Jesus went to the cross in our stead and atoned for our sins and the sins of all and rose again in victory that we might receive pardon and forgiveness through faith in His name! Cf. Romans 5:8; 1 John 2:1-2.

And again, when we consider all He has done to honor us, how could we fail to honor Him with godly fear, love and trust in His holy name?

LORD God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be merciful to us and forgive us for our many failures to honor You as the LORD God, our Maker and Redeemer. Enable and teach us to fear, love and trust in You above all else. We ask this for the sake of Jesus Christ, God the Son and our Savior. Amen.

[Devotion by Randy Moll. Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.]

Editorial on 07/05/2017