Is God first in your life?

Scientist and humorist P. D. East wrote a novel that depicted the world on the brink of disaster. Leaders of the super-power nations were fingering the controls that would bring civilization to a close. Negotiations had ceased. Lines were drawn. Just as the curtain was about to come down, there was a reprieve, and a forty-eight hour moratorium was announced for some sense to be made of the nonsense of war. All the leaders met together, bringing the sources of wisdom from their particular cultures. The Bible. The Koran. Folk wisdom. Social science. All were amassed and the information fed into a giant computer. Then they asked the question of the computer, “What is the formula for world peace?” The machine blinked and whirred and groaned until it spoke these words: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”

This is the first of the Ten Commandments given to Israel through Moses. These commandments are not the final word on ethics and morality. Jesus gave us that when He said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind and with all thy strength, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” The commandments are, however, the precepts on which civilized morality rests. They are still valid, and they are still truthful. You do not break them. They break you.

When God instructs Israel to have no other “little-g” gods before Him, He is not seeking to prove His existence. He doesn’t have to. He is the great I Am. He is saying that He alone is to be worshipped, honored and obeyed. Is He first in your life?