“You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, . . God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:3-5a)
When we contemplate the 10 Commandments in detail, we ought to come to the conclusion that they are impossible to keep. We might be able to obey a few, but not consistently. Nevertheless, the Lord calls us for us to keep them all. The truth is, however, if fail at one, you fail entirely. In fact so many people in this world cannot even get past that first one, for many people have gods, and not just pagans, but atheists, agnostics, and people who claim to be spiritual.
We can see that as we look at what is valued in our world, this First commandment is utterly disregarded for what is given the greatest focus in the media, academia, and government, is not the Almighty God who has revealed Himself in the Scriptures and in His Son Jesus. What is valued is the individual, man as god, the self, a god who determines right and wrong, good and evil without reference to the Commandments. And this is evil. This is detrimental to the masses who scoff at Almighty God, for He is jealous, not in the human sense of course, but He desires all humans to put their faith in Him and serve Him. It gives Him glory and honor, but it also blesses us as well. Those who do agree, who do not love and respect God, who want to have nothing to do with Him, will get what they desire: an eternity without Him. So they will find no peace in this life or the next.
And yet the commandments of God are meant to produce in us the love of God and love of our fellow man. This love is what we all strive for and seek, but cannot attain on our own efforts, since, no one can keep the Commandments to the degree that the Lord desires we all need a mediator, someone to keep them for us. We have such a mediator in Jesus Christ who died for our sins. Thus the Law becomes not just a curb which tells us what is right and wrong, but a mirror that shows us our sinfulness and a guide which leads us to Jesus as our Savior. All human beings sin and all fall short of God’s glory. Only by faith in Him can we truly have fellowship with God and live in righteousness for all eternity.f