Exodus 20:3 ‘You shall not have any other gods besides Me.’

This past Sunday morning in Church during worship there was a song playing. In the chorus of the song the words ‘O Lord of all gods’ was a part of the lyrics. The Lord started speaking to me about this part of the song.

From mans view of God/Christ, as our Creator and Savior, we are pouring out our heart that He is BETTER than everything. He is Lord of all, He is King, He is above all idols and gods that we acknowledge in our lives, whether that be nature, money, sex, or something else. We are saying, God you are more important to me than those things, I place you first!!! You are first in my life, you are greater than these! It is a form of giving Him our first fruits and best, our ‘all’ as we would say, and placing Him first in our lives.

Then he showed me in a vision Himself, this great God that we proclaim Him to be. And He is even greater than that, more than we can understand or fathom. He was standing beside all the other idols we have in our lives, all the other gods. He was standing on a podium on a stage in the 1^st place spot, and all the other idols/gods in our lives were in there prospective spots from 2^nd to last. I viewed them all as little wooden idols. Christ was standing there on the stage and looked at the other idols. Then He looked at me with this disgusted look and said, ‘really?!’ We keep telling God he is our number one when He does not want to be just our number one. He wants to be everything, our all. When we make Him number one then that means there are other things that we have given parts of ourselves. He is a jealous God and wants ALL of us. If you look at the first commandment in the Hebrew translation it says Exodus 20:3 ‘You shall not have any other gods besides Me.’ Not ‘before me’ as other translations read, but ‘no other gods besides Me’. There is only room for Him! No podium of 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd. There should only be God! Also, Mark 12:29-30, ‘And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is; “Hear, Israel. The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” This is the first commandment.’ It is insulting to God that I would rate him with all of these other idols that lead to death and are worldly on the same scale as a ‘god’ or ‘idol’ in my life because He is so MUCH MORE that it is not even a contest. Yet, we make it a contest!!!

Now don’t get me wrong. God is not misjudging our hearts, He see’s our sincerity and our thoughts. He understands and knows all that we are offering and giving Him. Psalms 44:20-21 ‘If we have forgotten the name of our God, and have spread our hands to an alien god, shall not God search out this? For He knows the secrets of the heart.’ He knows our hearts. He was showing me that He is not rejecting our praises and worship that we give Him, because it is our heart and a part of us. However, God wants us to see something greater here, to grow and mature in our understanding of Him. For example: It is like a child learning to make their bed. When they are little, if they can just get the pillow and cover sort of on the bed and maybe spread out, then it is made. But as they grow and mature, they are re-taught and learn a better way to make the bed. The way we made our bed as a child was not complete, but that doesn’t mean it was bad. It just meant that we had not finished learning how to make a bed. We go from throwing covers on the bed to putting on the bottom sheet, making the top sheet sleek and straight with hospital corners, then put our blankets that we sleep with on next, and finally the comforter and pillows arranged on top. Each step is a process and we must learn and be taught/shown each step. That is what God is doing here. He is not rejecting our heart to put Him first, but that is not what He has asked or called of us. He has called us to make Him THE one. He is the only one. He is calling us to a greater maturity.

I believe God is calling us to a greater understanding of exactly who He is and ‘what’ we are placing on the scale next to Him. We elevate things in our lives that are not worthy such as: money, time, sex, entertainment, etc. We put responsibilities and relationships before God such as spouses, children, family, the ministry, friends, etc. God is a jealous God and He wants all of us. Deuteronomy 4:24 ‘For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.’ Deuteronomy 32:21 ‘They have made Me jealous with what is not God; They have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation’

Other responsibilities in life that we often put before God, or rate God with, such as our families, the ministry, and paying the bills should not be an idol or god in our lives. It is hard at times because those responsibilities take so much of our time and effort. However, Christ wants us to make Him apart of those things. Include Him in all of our lives, not segregate him to the Church, the Bible, or those specific set aside times. He wants to be immersed in our lives, and only we are keeping Him out. Are you trying to walk in your own strength in those responsibilities to show Christ that you are following Him? Are you seeking Christ and His Kingdom daily? Are you giving Him all of you? Don’t get me wrong, God likes to watch plays of His children, just as parents like watching their children perform. However, God does not want to just sit on His throne and watch you live your lives, He wants to be apart of them. Christ wants to know and experience you and you to know and experience Him. For example: Saul knew the scriptures and who God was. He was a Jew and lived according to the law. But until he had an experience with God out on that road to Damascus, an intimate experience, Saul/Paul didn’t really know who God was personally. When Paul experienced God, he KNEW God intimately. The relationship had been established and developed as scriptures show. There are many examples of this in scripture with other people. God does not want us to be able to name the facts of the Bible; He wants us to experience those attributes. God wants you to let Him in your life to experience life with you. God wants to relate with you and you to let him be apart of your lives more than anything. God knows what we can do, but He loves doing it with us. He loves relating and getting to know us and us Him. So for those other godly responsibilities in our lives, we should make sure we are including Christ in those parts of our lives instead of separating them. When we integrate God into all that we are He will be our all, He will be our only God. He will always be with us, and those things that we make idols in our lives will fall away, because they are not what is lasting or important and they are not worthy. When our focus and hearts is Christ’s, He has all of us. And that is what He wants. He doesn’t want our first; He wants our all and Him to be our ONLY God.