ROOTED - Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Exodus 20:3
3 Thou shall have no other gods before me.
Reflection: Question #43
Written By: Pastor Jesse Caro
Question: What are we specifically taught by the words, “before me” in the First Commandment?
Answer: We are taught that God, who sees all things, takes notice and is very displeased with the sin of having any other gods.
As a teenager growing up, I loved basketball. I lived for basketball. My life was basketball. I worked at Hardee’s for a few years, but when I got home I would play basketball. Nonstop. I would practice free throws, three pointers and lay-ups. Of course I did other things also. I ate, slept, and relaxed. But dare I say that my mind seldom strayed from basketball. I ran at night several miles… because I wanted to be a better and faster basketball player. I would run 2 miles dribbling the ball with my right hand, and two miles dribbling the ball with my left. I did exercises that promised to increase my vertical jump… such that I could be better at basketball. Basketball was my “god.”
My mind seldom strayed from basketball when I was 16 and 17 years old. I did a lot of other things, of course, but they, mostly, were in service of the main thing: basketball. As I consider this, I feel like it is an analogy to the way we should live our live for Christ. He is our main idol… our God. He seldom is off our minds and much of what we do, and the way we orient our lives, is owing to our main relationship with Christ. Our activities come back to God. In everything we do, we do them to the glory of God. Nothing can come “before me,” God says. It isn’t that we cannot have other things we love and other affections, it is simply that we cannot have them come before God. We hold all of the things in our life as gifts from God and we cherish them for God’s sake. I will say that I do not do this perfectly. I struggle with other gods. However, there is a way that we can cherish and love things, and keep God as our top priority.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, may we keep you as our main priority… making no other gods we hold before you.