Our ultimate love and the greatest desire of our heart should be for God.
5 You must not bow
down to them or worship them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who
will not tolerate your affection for any other gods.
Exodus 20:7 You must not misuse the name of the LORD your God. The LORD will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name.
Matthew 22:35-38 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
Ever since they were
saved by the Passover lamb God's children have become increasingly more familiar with him. The wilderness
experience has been used to show them, and us, that God is holy
and his chosen people have been
redeemed to live a new way that is a reflection of his holiness so that the rest of the
world will get to know him as well.
The first and most important rules that God gave his children in the
ten commandments are the ones that tell us how God must be treated. If
we fail at this then we are not going to be successful at the rest of
the commands that tell us how to treat our neighbors.
The challenge to treat God properly has always been a struggle, man’s
number one priority is to worship God but it is Satan's number one priority is
to keep you from doing it, or at least to keep you from doing it correctly. The problem that started with Cain is still going on today.
Psalms 51:17 The sacrifice You desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
Satan doesn't need to stop you from worshiping God, all he needs to do is get you to do it your own way. Satan knows that worshipping God wrong is just as offensive to
him as not worshipping him at all.
After all of the miracles they have seen they will still struggle to be loyal, God's people adopted the polytheistic ways of the Egyptians, they were okay with the real God as long as they could have the fake ones as well.
Isaiah 44:6-7, 10 This is what the LORD says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies: “I am the First and the Last; there is no other God. 7 Who is like me? Let him step forward and prove to you his power. Let him do as I have done since ancient times when I established a people and explained its future. Who but a fool would make his own god— an idol that cannot help him one bit?
When you look back at world history you cannot find another God but the one true God that has proven himself to be far greater than any of the imitations. The man made gods never had anything to offer their followers but somehow the creator of those gods seemed to think he had made something more powerful than himself.
The gods are worshipped for very pragmatic reasons. Almost never are the gods worshipped for their intrinsic beauty or goodness, but for what they control. Hostile, capricious gods are worshipped to appease their anger and to avert the outpouring of their wrath. Others are worshipped largely due to the powers which they possess and the benefits which they produce. In other words, the gods are viewed by their subjects as means to a desired end. It is no wonder that the worship of false gods is called harlotry in the Bible. The relationship between men and the gods is closely akin to prostitution. A price is paid and a service is rendered, but there is certainly no love between the two parties.
We can easily find fault in the people that God brought out of Egypt, we look at them and wonder why he wasn't God enough for them, but we are worse than they were. They didn't have the big picture that we have, the only information that they knew about God was what they learned personally or from stories passed down from the previous generations.
We have a much better perspective of God because of our Bibles, we have much more information about him and how to please him but we still have trouble with the commandments that teach us how he should be treated.
The sin against this commandment, which we are most in danger of, is giving that glory to any creature which is due to God only. Pride makes a God of ourselves, covetousness makes a God of money, sensuality makes a God of the belly. Whatever is loved, feared, delighted in, or depended on, more than God, that we make a god of.
Our ultimate love and the greatest desire of our heart should be for God but the world has so many other loves and so many other places to put our trust. We fall for the lie that we can use people and stuff to give us the security that can only be found in God.
We all have something that we trust that makes life work, something that we depend on instead of God, it can be power, approval, comfort, control, your achievements or even your religion. Whatever gives your life meaning and worth is where you will have difficulty keeping God in his rightful place.
1 John 5:21 Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.
With so many options that the world makes available to us it is difficult to love God exclusively, to find our greatest worth and love that satisfies us and helps us get through our trials. We must put our ultimate love and trust in the only one that will never fail us in this life and for eternity.
RELATED ARTICLES
What Are the Attributes of God? (God's Perfections)
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10 Key Bible Verses on God’s Sovereignty
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The Perfections of God
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Is God perfect?
(gotquestions.org)
