In Exodus 20 the Lord speaks the 10 Commandments to Moses on top of Mount Sinai. The very first commandment He gives is found in verse 3

“You shall have no other gods before me” Exodus 20:3 (NIV)

Essentially, God is telling them that He is first, that He is number 1, He is one that they should worship, nothing else should take His place. I’ve often heard people talk about this moment, supported by other moments in Scripture, and use it to paint a picture of God where He is arrogant, self centred and narcissistic. They talk about how insecure God must be if He won’t allow Hie people to look around, or shop elsewhere.

Their theory is built on a fundamental flaw. They seem to think that us having anything before God, or worshipping something we have created is good for us and a positive thing. I disagree!

The truth is we weren’t made to worshipped. We only have to look at celebrities and other people we put onto a pedestal to realise how we simply weren’t designed to be worshipped. It messes with us, it turns us, we just weren’t built for it. We also weren’t meant to worship anything else because nothing can deliver what we think it might. People of the day worshipped all sorts of animal gods, the sun, moon etc. but all of them were useless.

God is not telling us to only have Him as our God because He likes to attention, He tells us this because He knows if we don’t we will worship something and that will end terribly for us. He is the only one who can handle being worshipped without being corrupted. He knows that with our worship directed to Him, our priorities and direction will be in the correct direction. If our worship is directed elsewhere, we will be in trouble. His instruction to worship Him is one of a compassionate father saving His kids from misdirection and ensuring that their affection is set in the right thing.