The First Commandment

Today I'm sharing from one of my brothers. He was kind enough to help me out with this post on the first commandment when I couldn't seem to pull it together.

 

Exodus 20:3 “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

We could attempt to define this command or at least what is meant by “other gods” but since we could not give a better definition than did the One who gave it, let’s take a look at what Jesus said about it. When asked by the Pharisees in Matthew 22 which was the great commandment in the law Jesus simultaneously referenced and expounded upon the first commandment in order and, apparently importance saying: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.”

 

Ravi Zacharias said this about love: “The supreme ethic that God has given to us is the ethic of love. It is the peak of all intellectual and emotional alignment. This thing we call love which places value upon the other person of worth and as something to be protected.”

 

"This commandment prohibits every species of mental idolatry, and all inordinate attachment to earthly and sensible things. As God is the fountain of happiness, and no intelligent creature can be happy but through Him, whoever seeks happiness in the creature is necessarily an idolater; as he puts the creature in the place of the Creator, expecting that from the gratification of his passions, in the use or abuse of earthly things, which is to be found in God alone. The very first commandment of the whole series is divinely calculated to prevent man's misery and promote his happiness, by taking him off from all false dependence, and leading him to God Himself, the fountain of all good." ~Adam Clarke

 

Of all human endowment why is God most jealous of our love? I suppose I could launch into a discourse of how He does not need our skills as He is infinitely more skilled, He does not need our strength as He never tires, nor does He need our resources as He himself provided them etc. But I think it can be better answered from a different angle. But before we can look from that angle we simply must address the elephant in the room that inevitably arises when love is discussed. To do this briefly I will simply state that if grace and therefore love towards God were irresistible then love would be without value and the command to love without purpose. No, it is precisely because this is so far from the truth that God places such a supreme value on our oft imperfect love. The God who created the cosmos, controls the weather, commands the sun to go backwards, the waves to calm, raises up one king and cuts down another, smashes nations, and preserves His people, does not and will not force a single soul to love Him. Our love is the only free will offering of any value in our power to bring, and that only after His ultimate sacrifice which drew all men unto Him.

 

So now that I have nearly stolen my own thunder, let’s move to this other vantage point and fill out the answer to why God values our love. In God’s economy He is the King, we are His citizens, the first command is His tax, and love is our currency. If God programmed each and every human a full supply of perfect love and no possibility of choosing something other than He Himself, would we not join the beast about His throne? Not without place or purpose, but neither the creation that will bear rule over angels. When God created His perfect world man could not rise to his supreme ethic and calling without the alternate possibility that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so purposefully supplied.

Love is indeed our supreme calling but we must actively choose it; so please, actively and purposefully choose love! It is after all, the only thing of value which we possess to offer the One who has given all for us.