Rev. Michelle Manuel, Associate Director of Adult Ministries & Shelby Olive, Communications Associate

Exodus 20:2-3
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before me.

Reflection:
Who is God? What a huge question. When we ask this question and read the Bible with this in mind we come up with a pretty substantial list. God is holy. God is a healer. God is a bringer of salvation. God is a creator. God is just. God is a liberator. These attributes could go on and on to reveal a God who is worthy of all praise. God’s character calls us to a higher way of living, because it turns out that God’s character directly impacts our understanding of who we are, how God interacts with us, and how we order our lives.

Let’s look to the Ten Commandments. The opening line is not a command at all; it is an introduction—a very important introduction—that would change the Israelites’ whole lives. God tells the them who God is and what God has done for them, establishing a relationship that is rooted in their liberation. They are a freed people, but God has no intention of leaving them to their own self-destructive devices. So God shows them the relationship they ought to have with God and with their community. First on the list—have no other gods.

The Egyptians understood Pharaoh to be an actual god. For generations, Israel was held captive not only by oppressive people, but also by someone who was believed to be an oppressive deity. The command to have no other gods alludes to the fact that there were indeed other options on the table. They are not good options. But they are options, nonetheless. And God does the work of delivering Israel from those other options.

We too have other “options” for worship, and if we aren’t careful we continue the sins of our ancestors in this way. There are plenty of options on the table to which we can give ourselves over—wealth, ideologies, other people, and even our own selves. It can happen even without noticing that God is no longer is the one who orders our lives, but it is the ‘god’ we’ve placed on the altar of our hearts.

But as Christians, we inherit the narrative of God’s great liberation. We are no longer shackled to destructive gods. In response to that freedom, we entirely give ourselves to God with all we have and all we are. Like the Israelites, we live as those who have been set free by God. There is endless grace extended to us as we are nudged by the Holy Spirit to remove the ‘gods’ we may have placed before our Yahweh.

For the month of September, we will focus on God, every day placing God at the center of our worship. This focus will lead us to continually order our lives around the one we profess to worship. Who is this holy, just, healing, omnipresent, liberating God? Let’s study God together this month.

Prayer:
Gracious and loving God, you are the name above all names, our great High Priest, our King. This month we will return to you with all that we have. Search me and know my heart. Search me and if there are any other ‘gods’ I’ve placed before you I ask for conviction so that I can step into repentance and reorder my life. Thank you for your endless grace, your goodness, your good character. Help me to live as one who worships you with my whole life.

Amen.