Who Is On First?

You shall have no other gods before me.  --  Deuteronomy 5:7

Saint John of the Cross offers us some words of good counsel, “Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing.”  This might be a little too strongly worded for those of us with families for we are likely to think, not of houses or cars, but of spouse, children, and grandchildren and the joy of having one’s heart held captive by a smiling baby.  Grandchildren, at least, can hardly be counted among earthly things. 

Still, we could see it is as a practical, applicable restatement of the First Commandment.  A few days ago, Justin asked if we could even make it past One.   Many of our troubles come from putting something before God, and our prayers are often requests that God might give life to our dead idols, which, when you think about it, must sound pretty stupid.   

I could care less for money, if it’s not mine.  I like having money; I like being able to get what I need without begging and to be able to share with those who are out of money.  But a person has to be careful. Money can stoke pride, and pride is fatal.  Money does not give us what we need, God does.  Sometimes He does it through our money or someone else’s. 

I haven’t spent much of the last forty years unemployed.  What time I did spend out of work I did not like at all. I have prayed for jobs, and I have gotten them.  Some were pretty good, some not so good, but none of them were my source, and I think I lost one or two because I thought about them the wrong way. 

Money, jobs – what else?  Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll?  Houses and lands?  Guns and governments?  Politics?  Television?  Computers and the internet?  Cars, boats, and motorcycles?  Jewelry? Clothes?  It doesn’t matter.  Almost all of us have things that we end up putting in front of the Lord from time to time, things that will become our gods, that we “can’t live without”.  We become like our false gods.  We make ourselves over in their image and likeness.  Our souls become as dead as the brass we might hammer into a lifeless statue.     

Christians, too, can have their teraphim and fetishes, things that “speak” to them and things in which they trust.  Some people might even make an idol out of church and church services, forgetting, perhaps, that the God whom the universe cannot contain dwells not in man-made structures.  We are His temple, both individually and corporately, and the church is wherever two or three are gathered together in His Name. 

We can gratefully enjoy all God’s blessings and all that He gives us; nevertheless, it is a great evil and a source of unhappiness to become attached to this world and that which is of it.   But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.