“You shall have no other gods before me.” ~ Exodus 20:3

Schedules. Routines. Lists. The building blocks of our society. Some of us have timetables in place for every day of the week, with the duties and tasks organized in colour-coded fashion, and stickers to highlight the milestone moments. These people know who is in charge of each chore, how long events will take, when food needs to be eaten by, what day of the week is toenail-clipping day, and how to go about your business as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Or you are like me, and not organized at all! You can barely pronounce the word ‘list.’ Routines are constricting and your gut is your schedule. Adaptability is your mantra, and you live your life more fluidly than that stale cup of coffee you forgot on the kitchen counter this morning, which is now colder than a brass toilet seat in the Yukon.

But, no matter how structured or spontaneous our lives are, all of us are driven by one thing: our priorities.

Whether we plan out every last detail of our lives or take things as they come, we make our decisions based on our priorities. Sometimes we prioritize poorly, but even when we do, we often recognize we have made a mistake.

The truth is, we all prioritize ourselves in many ways! What business deals we make first and what jobs can be held off for later, what shows on Netflix we choose to watch before others, even which treat to eat first out of the variety pack of mini Nestle chocolate bars. Generally speaking, most of us are wired to prioritize our day-to-day decisions fairly well.

But what drives our priorities? How do our priorities line up with God’s commands for us?

Author and preacher George Buttrick recalled a time in which he ran into a farmer. This farmer had just returned from rescuing one of his lost sheep. When Buttrick asked how a sheep could wander away from its flock, the farmer replied, “they just nibble themselves lost.” The sheep go from one tuft of grass to the next, until they’ve simply lost their way.

Isn’t that also true for us? We can find ourselves nibbling at the things in life that just don’t matter that much … until one day, we turn around and ask ourselves, how did I get here? Unless we establish our life’s priorities, any of us can end up like those lost sheep.

The first commandment is about just that – our life’s priorities – specifically, what is at the top of our priority list. “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3, emphasis added). That’s interesting, isn’t it? God isn’t saying He is the only important thing in our lives. Rather, He comes before all important things. This is a positional command. It’s about loyalty to God first and foremost over the other priorities in your life.

That begs an easy question for us all, then: “What is at the top of your priority list?” Because the top of that list is the god (Big ‘G’ or little ‘g’) that you put your faith in. Whatever is at the top of that list dictates your life’s most important transactions:
  – Who do you spend your time with?
  – How do you spend the money God’s entrusted to you?
  – What do you spend your time doing?

All of our expenditures are linked very closely to what our priorities are. So, what is at the top? God tells us it should be Him.

It is easy to look at things like wealth, or power, or comfort and recognize that they can become a priority in our lives. However, I fear that oftentimes it is the things we are most grateful for, the gifts God has specially given to us, that turn into the gods at the top of our lists.

Perhaps your god is the responsibility you hold to the job He has given you, or the community of people He has blessed you with, or the family He has entrusted into your care. These are certainly gifts from God, and we should absolutely cherish them! But, do they end up becoming more of a priority in our lives than God Himself? Even wonderful blessings in our lives can start taking precedence over the One who provides these gifts for us.

What is dictating the course of your life?

In this weird season of COVID-19, where we all feel more isolated than we’ve perhaps ever been, our priorities are highlighted even more. Where are your priorities right now? Is God at the top, or has He fallen down the ranks?

While it is a season of isolation, it is also the season of Lent! During Lent, we take time to really focus on the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. We recognize that everything we have, everything we are, is due to His death and resurrection. As 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 says:

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.”

We are not called to live for ourselves, but to live for Christ! The truth is, we are all guilty of mistakenly prioritizing our lives without Christ at the top. Something we will learn repeatedly in these reflections is that we will always fall short of His commands! If we could have kept them, Jesus would not have had to come. We cannot keep these commands to be saved. Only Jesus saves. These commands are not our salvation’s checklist. They are here to fulfill us and to draw us closer to Him. They enrich us. They point us towards Christ. They are in place so that we may respond to His grace, and live not for ourselves, but for Christ who saved us.

And in this first command, our response is to remember to put God the Father, Christ our Savior, and the Holy Spirit, first in every aspect our lives.

Questions to Ponder:

1) What is at the top of your priority list?
2) If you look at your life’s transactions, what changes can be made to make God the priority?
3) How can both Lent and this season of isolation help us with keeping this first commandment?

Devotionals
The 10 Commandments