God as Supreme

MEMORY VERSE: “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” —Exodus 20:3

EXODUS 20:3-5

THE commandment given to ancient Israel, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” is just as applicable to the Lord’s people today as it was to the Israelites. The Heavenly Father must indeed be supreme in our lives if we are to be pleasing to him. When we dedicate ourselves to God he becomes the supreme Authority in our lives, and to allow other interests to conflict with our full obedience to him would lead to uncertainty and probably chaos in our lives.

The true God expresses his plan and his will through his Word, the Bible. Hence full obedience to him calls for complete loyalty to his Word. We may properly confer with other sources of information, either persons or writings, but the final decision as to what is truth, and the direction in which we should go must depend completely upon what God has said in his inspired Word. At times this becomes a severe test of our loyalty to God, for other viewpoints and opinions may seem more appealing than the will of God as expressed through his Word.

Image worship has been prevalent in the world throughout the ages. To see and touch something that represents deity may seem to strengthen faith and bring one nearer to God, but it is forbidden in the Word, and probably one reason is that there is too great a temptation to look upon the image as actually being God, hence one’s worship stops at the feet of the image. Christians, by the eye of faith, are bidden to look at the things which are not seen, eternal in the heavens; and chief among these is our Heavenly Father himself.

MATTHEW 6:24-33

“No man can serve two masters” Summing up the thought Jesus added, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (vs. 24) Mammon means money; in other words, it is that which stands for security in this world among those who do not put their full trust in the Lord. This does not mean that it is a sin to possess money. In I Timothy 6:10 Paul explains that it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. The love of money could easily replace the love of God in our lives, and thus be as another god.

There are various other gods which tempt the devoted Christian. In addition to money there are worldly pleasures, prestige, our work, success, and a host of other things which tend to replace full devotion to our Heavenly Father. The Scriptures make it plain that the divine will is transgressed when we give our highest devotion to anything or anyone other than our Heavenly Father.

The Revised Standard Version of verse 25 reads, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” The King James Version admonishes us to take no thought for our lives, which manifestly is not the proper view. We take thought for our lives when we go to the table to eat a meal, or retire at night for rest. The Revised rendering is correct—we are not to be anxious about these material aspects of life.

And then Jesus explains why, by using the example of the birds and the flowers of the field. God takes care of them, yet they are not anxious about their needs. So he will clothe and feed us according to his knowledge of our needs, for we are of much more value than the birds, the flowers, and the grass. The Gentiles, that is, the nonbelievers, spend their energy in seeking the material good things of life, but they do not have the Heavenly Father as their God.

Our Heavenly Father knows that there are certain material things of life for which we have need, and he will provide these without anxious thought on our part. As followers of the Master, we are to seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; then all the other things we need will be added according to our needs. The reference here is to a place with Jesus in the rulership phase of the kingdom. No greater prize has ever been offered. It surely behooves us to lay aside everything else in order to attain it.

QUESTIONS

Why should the true God be supreme in every believer’s life?

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