In Exodus 20:3 we have the first of the Ten Commandments. Do you know what it is? “You shall have no other gods before me.”
Have you ever wondered why is it so important to God to be first in our hearts and, for that matter, in all created reality? Over the years I have heard many attempted explanations given in lots of different ways. And to this day I am not comfortable with any one of them. They all seemed to have this one idea in common: explaining it as if to say, “Hey, he’s God, your creator, you’d better just bow to him, he won’t stand for anything that puts him in second place so better put him first or else!”
One time in my college years I even ventured to ask a powerful preacher after the chapel service on campus why God wanted to be first. Almost before I got done asking the question he replied, in effect, that it was demonic to even ask such a question. So much for getting my question answered.
But since then, thankfully, I have come to a personally satisfying answer. Here it is: God insists on being first in our hearts because only then will we listen to him teach us how to love others as he loves them.
You see, everything God does in the interest of exulting himself in the universe or among the nations or in seeking to have first place in our lives is motivated by His desire to see His self-sacrificial love rule in all things and in every way.
In other words, if we are ever going to know how to best care for another person we must give God first place in our hearts. That is to say, we must subject all of our deliberations and ways to His counsel and guidance.
Why? Because God expresses his love in a unique way to each person we know because each person is unique. Only He knows how to love each person around us, and only He has the love with which to love them.
To have been made in the image of God reveals that we have an enormous capacity — a godlike capacity — to live lives of self sacrificial love, for God is self sacrificial love. However, since God alone is the source of that love we do not actualize our value and — in a sense — make ourselves useful to Him until we relate to Him in such a way that his love first fills and then overflows our lives.
So when we put God first, we establish Him as the primary source of our strength and information as to how to love others. And because he cares so deeply for the people in our lives he insists on being first so that can happen. In such submission to him his love can flow freely and powerfully through us to every one we know, everywhere we go.
