20:3 (HRV) “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
Most of the interpretations of this scripture revolve
around creating a hierarchy of what’s most important in your life and making
sure to put God at the top of the list; God, family, country, and so on. I grew up believing that, as long as I began
with “God” when reciting any list of what’s most important to me, I was obeying
the first commandment.
But that’s not what this verse is all about. The words “before me” don’t refer to having
the highest place on a list, but rather it refers to location as in the
sentence, “Bring the children before me.”
The first commandment could be translated, “You shall place no other
gods in My face,” or “You will not bring any other gods into My presence.” The fallacy of the list idea is that it creates an illusion
that if we give God a piece of our time, we can enjoy our other pleasures as we
see fit. But imagine how my wife would
react if I brought home a prostitute for an hour and, after listening to my wife's
protests, I told her that it was ok to spend my time with the prostitute for just
an hour because I spent three hours with my wife that day which proves my wife
is still more important. How well do you
think that logic would go over? Yet that’s
the logic we bring to God with the “list” mentality.
Jesus said that the commandments hinge on two things, and
the first of those two is that we are to love God with everything that we
are. The first four commandments are,
essentially, breaking this down into more easily definable pieces. So, really, we are just being told to love
God, but in case we’re not sure how to define that (since many people define “love”
very differently) we’re given a more specific set of guidelines as to what that
means. The first commandment is a matter
of focus. I want to love God, but how do
I do that? By giving Him my attention at
all times. By keeping my eyes and ears
focused on Him and what He wants. When I
walk away and do what I want to do, even if I tell God He can come along if He
wants, or even if I say I’m doing it for Him, I’m following the desires of
something else and therefore I’m worshipping another God. And when I do that, I’m placing that god in
His face and calling it good. In fact,
in my delusion, I may even be calling it God’s will.
Does this mean I can’t enjoy anything else? Does this mean I can’t go for a ride? I can’t watch the ball game? I can’t enjoy that meal? I can’t even spend time with my family? No.
And yet, yes. It all comes down
to where our real passion and focus lay.
If I am truly loving God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength,
then He is going to return that with His perfect love. That perfect love flowing through me is going
to grow, and as He tells me to go, I am going to reach out to everyone around
me and love them with the love that God is giving me.
But if my job, my possessions, my religion, or even my
family is an idol that I hold sacred, and I'm spending time with them based not on what God wants from me, but what I've decided is best for me, then my time spent with those things is
time spent worshipping those idols. I'm effectively sticking them in God’s face and telling Him that they're more important at the moment. This
is why we’re told at different times in the bible that if you put your hand to
the plow, but turn back to your father or mother, you’re not fit for the
kingdom. Or we’re told that we need to
be able to give up our spouses and our children for His Name’s sake. These sound harsh unless we realize that God
loves those that we claim to love far more than we can even imagine, and that
He knows that unless we love them perfectly through Him, our love is, at best,
an imperfect deception of what love should truly be.
If we have entered into this marriage and called him
Lord, then this is his first commandment to us:
Look deeply into His smiling eyes and concentrate on His loving words
without breaking your concentration.
(And to the guys out there who feel weird about that, just gender flip
it. God’s not man or woman, but that discussion's
for another day.) Don’t bring another
love into this marriage and call it acceptable, because He is a jealous lover
and wants us all for Himself. He will
not share us in the same way we wouldn’t share our spouses with other
lovers.
It’s simple, really.
All YHWH wants is all of you.
Scott Snyder
