You shall have no
other gods.
A commandment that we have known since childhood. It seems so simple, right? There is only one God and we are to fear,
love and trust in him above all things.
We may often forget how easy it is to fail in keeping this commandment. When we hear it, we are often drawn to those
false gods like Buddha and Allah, or maybe the multiplicity of gods included in
the Hindu religion. We easily dismiss
thoughts of worshipping gods of that caliber because they often have no real
appeal to us.
But if we really dig deeper into what it means to have
another god, we may have to re-evaluate how easily we let ourselves off the
hook. In the Large Catechism Luther
explains what a God is…A god is that to
which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of
need. To have a god is nothing else than
to trust and believe him with our whole heart.
As I have often said, the trust and faith of the heart alone make both
God and an idol. If your faith and trust
are right, then your God is the true God.
On the other hand, if your trust is false and wrong, then you have not
the true God. For these two belong
together, faith and God. That to which
your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God.
So in whom do you trust.
Do you really and truly rely on God for everything? We like to think that we do, yet we are
constantly drawn to trust in ourselves or the work which we do to earn us some
money. We trust in our car to keep us
safe, our insurance to provide in case of an emergency, or even our government
to bail us out when things go wrong.
While none of these things are wrong in and of themselves, we see how
easy it is to be drawn to trust in them for the blessings which only come from
God.
Over the next several months I will take portions from the
catechism in order to give us an opportunity to review those teachings which we
have learned from scripture regarding the basic teachings of God’s Word. A review of the Catechism starts with the
commandments because it offers to us a needed opportunity to reflect on God’s
will for us in our lives. The law tells
us what we are to do and what not to do but it cannot save us. More often than not, the law simply reveals
to us our sinful condition and the inability of mankind to live according to
God’s will.
The first commandment directs us to the source of all
goodness and mercy. Only in the one true
God can we alone find comfort and joy.
Why? Because as the psalmist
says He forgives all our iniquities and heals all our diseases, He redeems our
lives from destruction. When God
commands allegiance to Him and Him only, it is because if we place our trust in
something else…we have no God at all and are doomed to eternal death. But only in Him can there be full confidence,
because God cannot fail.
He did not fail. He
sent His Son as promised and completed the way to make us right again before
His eyes. In the first commandment God
intends to tell us: “Whatever good thing you lack, look to me for it and seek
it from me. I am the one who will
satisfy you and help you out of every need.
Only let your heart cling to no one else.”
No comments:
Post a Comment