What if I told you that Christians are breaking the first commandment every day? Not necessarily every Christian, but many.

You might respond with, “Well, I know I don’t break it, but okay – maybe it’s true, though I don’t know how.”

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me” is probably the most fundamental of standards as far as the Christian faith is concerned, and the idea of a true Christian violating that standard is unthinkable to most.

In the West, the predominant thinking for many years, centuries even, only accepted the existence of one God. He may have been misunderstood, misrepresented, or misused, yet there has been a general acceptance that there is only that one God, the God of the Bible – uncreated, unchanging, eternal, holy, just, merciful, gracious, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

When we think of the first commandment, we usually frame it in terms of definition, that is, the description of what God is. The technical term for this kind of definition is ontological. It defines the nature and attributes of God.

But what if we reframe the commandment using a functional definition, and rather than describing what God is we describe the role He plays in our lives. Then we could find that there are many things that we unconsciously treat as only God should be treated. The fact that the commandments use the singular “Thou” (ata [אָתּה] or at [אָתְּ] in Hebrew) rather than the plural tells us they are directed to the individual, and so it is the individual’s personal practice and duty that is being addressed.

We can see how the unsaved could easily replace God in their lives with a myriad of other alternatives, but could the believer really break the first commandment? Surely it can’t apply to them – could it?

The word “before” is more important than it seems at first read. It means “in front of”, so literally the commandment reads, “Thou shalt have no other gods in front of Me”, that is, in His presence. Nothing else can be given equal place with God. No other thing should be competing for our attention when we have God as our God.

The most obvious violation of this commandment is when people worship or serve a different “deity” figure than the one true God, but that is just the simplest and most basic approach. Anything can take God’s place in our lives, whether material or immaterial, visible or abstract. It could be sport, career, family, or money. It could also be popularity, status, comfort, success, or tradition. These could be called “secular gods” – objects, ideas, or experiences we give attention to in ways only God deserves. Yet even ministry can become a god to us when we make the ministry the focus of our efforts rather than as a means of focusing glory upon the Lord. So this functional definition of a god/God includes so many more possibilities and provides an opportunity to address this issue practically, not merely theoretically.

So how can we find out if we have treating anything else as God?

We need to examine our lives, and that isn’t an easy thing to do. It’s hard to examine ourselves, especially from a “cold start”. It would be helpful to have some tool that can guide us through the process as simply as possible. And that’s exactly what I hope to provide you with in this series of articles.

God made man in His own image, not in the sense of physical appearance, since God is spirit, but in the faculties that He has designed us to possess. I’ll deal with these faculties in detail in future articles, but in summary I would identify five faculties that represent the essence of the image of God in man:

• Individuality – the authority to choose
• Morality – the acknowledgement of values
• Creativity – the appreciation of beauty
• Spirituality – the awareness of God
• Community – the ability to love

These five faculties most fulfil their divinely ordained purpose when their focus is upon God alone. But we have to recognise that they can be expressed less fully and less correctly when directed toward other things.

With these faculties in mind, there are five aspects of life, five functions, that we can focus on to help identify the false gods in our lives. These five functions form a framework for self-examination using the word DIMES as a memory aid. This framework asks five questions:

• D – What do I DEPEND on most?
• I – What INFORMS me most?
• M – What MOTIVATES me most?
• E – What do I ESTEEM most?
• S – What do I SHARE most?

Throughout this series of articles we will examine each function and seek to apply them practically and personally. If you are serious about deepening your relationship with the Lord, this framework may help. It will require us to be brutally honest with ourselves. It will likely get uncomfortable, but the benefit of seeking to honour the Lord above all else is immeasurable.

So please join me in this journey. We’ll start next time with looking at the D of DIMES – “What do I DEPEND on most?” – considering our instinctive response to difficulties.

God bless. DC