The foremost commandment of all is “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:29-30). That’s what Jesus said, quoting from Deuteronomy 6:4-5. There can thus be no doubt that complete, genuine, heart-felt devotion to God is the principal characteristic of Christian behavior.

But how should such love be expressed in our everyday life, in our thoughts and feelings and actions? This is what the first part of the Ten Commandments tells us, and many of the particular civil and ceremonial laws that follow serve to flesh out these big ideas.

And the biggest of all comes right at the beginning: “You shall have no other gods before Me” (v. 3). Now, of course this means we shouldn’t put anyone or anything that God has created in His place: not even our homes, our families, our health, or our happiness should be more important to us than God. Moreover, when God says, “before Me,” it technically means, “in front of me.” And since we can’t hide anything from God, that means we can’t worship anyone or anything else on the side, even if we give God first place in our hearts. As a wife would never be satisfied with a husband who says, “Sure, I have other lovers, but I love you most,” God wants our love for Him not only to be genuine and heart-felt, but exclusive. He wants to be our one-and-only.

The second commandment contains a similar warning against such idolatry, as God tells us not to worship images of anything He has created (v. 5). But this commandment also goes further, telling us not even to make any such idols. After all, God knows how easy it is for the things we see to draw our hearts away from Him – and that applies just as easily to modern movies, TV shows and video games as it did to Old Testament statues of animals, birds, and fish. Since God created the universe with words, and since God reveals Himself to us almost exclusively in words, we should seek to follow His example, avoiding the use of images in worship – not least for our own safety’s sake.

But our praise and prayer mustn’t stop when public worship is concluded. No, our reverence for God must continue to saturate even our everyday conversation. Of course that means we shouldn’t misuse God’s name (v. 7), behaving as if God doesn’t care what we say about Him. After all, what husband wants his wife to bad-mouth him to her friends? Even if she remains physically faithful to him, doesn’t he also want her to stand up for him, to defend him, to build up his reputation in the sight of other people? Why shouldn’t God want the same kind of loyalty and devotion from us?

And we all know that, for any couple’s relationship to be strengthened, they have to spend lots of quality time with one another. So, should we be surprised that God has set apart one whole day every week so that His people can draw closer to Him? And let’s face it: putting aside even good and praiseworthy tasks in order to focus our attention on God, reading His word and giving Him our praise, isn’t just a good way of building our relationship with Him – it’s so important that God wove it into the Ten Commandments, making it part of the Moral Law.

But lest we begrudge God so much time, and so much exclusive reverence and devotion, God reminds us once again in verse 2 of why He wants us to worship Him: Because He has brought us, not only out of slavery to Pharaoh but out of bondage to sin and death. Because He has brought us into relationship with Himself by His grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. So if He is our Savior and Lord, doesn’t He deserve us to worship Him and praise Him and be loyal to Him – on His terms?

Exodus 20:1-11 (NASB)

Then God spoke all these words, saying,
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.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5 “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
7 “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
8 “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 “Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.
11 “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.