If a loved one needed serious heart surgery, would you prefer a first-year medical student to perform the operation, or would you rather it be a seasoned doctor who has done that surgery two-thousand times? How about if you were accused of a serious crime you didn’t commit? Would you be content with a legal intern defending you? Or might you want a more experienced, skilled attorney? You want the person who will best care for you. So, apply that reality to the First Commandment.

When God tells us not to have any other gods, our sinful nature’s first inclination is to think it is because God is a narcissist who craves the attention. That is projecting what we are often like onto him. But God commands us to have no other gods, not because he seeks attention, but because he knows there is no one who loves us as much as he does… no one who can care for us anywhere close to as well as he can. It is he, by a infinite margin, who can best care for us. Therefore, when we love or trust anyone or anything else more than God, the sin doesn’t simply offend him. It is incredibly self-destructive. As we begin our worship series on the Ten Commandments, by the Spirit teach us to say, “Lord, have mercy, for our incessant idolatry.”