Hungry for God: There Is No Other

“Then Jesus said to him, ‘Be gone, Satan! For it is written,

“You shall worship the Lord your God
and Him only shall you serve.”’”

—Matthew 4:10

The first of the Ten Commandments sets the tone for the other nine. It is, “You shall have no other gods before Me”—Exodus 20:3. There is only one God. All other gods are inventions of Satan. In Hinduism there are 330 million gods. And each one of them is in some way trying to make up what is found in the one true God.

Who made you? Did you make yourself? Did you cause yourself to be born in this day and age and not in another time? Did you cause yourself to be born as you are—not with Down Syndrome, or some other incapacitating disability? Did you give yourself the ability to grow? Did you give yourself the ability to mature, to understand? Only one did that—GOD. There is no other. And only the biggest fools say there is no God (cf. Psalm 14:1; 53:1).

God made us for Himself, to experience the joyful bliss of who He is. We were made for eternity and this world is but a shadow, a preface, a warm-up act for that which dwells outside of what we call time. This world is not our home; it is the airport screening process, death is our flight, and there is only one of two destinations—heaven or hell.

We were made for God, but while we are on this earth, we are pawns in Satan’s war. Satan declared his rebellion at the beginning of history, and has sought to tear apart God’s creation as a means of getting to God Himself. He has created a myriad of myths and legends, fairy tales and fantasies, activities and actors in his attempt to turn us away from the one true God. The truth is, he hasn’t created anything, he has only distorted that which is good and true, by injecting it with a lie. Lies are his greatest and most often used tool, and no one is greater than he at using it. He injects a small lie into a big truth, deftly turning it into an even bigger lie. He distorts that which is good—food, drink, sex, success, etc., and thereby makes slaves and sinners of those who find illicit pleasure in the distortion of the good and true, making them task masters rather than servants, exalting the creation more than the Creator, turning that which is not god into gods and goddesses who are capricious and fickle, who care not for loyalty, only for belittling God’s great, terrifying glory.

As temptations are thick upon our glass, as a fog on an expressway, the only cure is the breath from God’s mouth. His words live and breathe upon the situations of life—blowing away the lies of the devil, enabling us to see and act clearly. When Jesus said, “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve,” He was reminding us of the first commandment—“You shall have no other gods before Me.”

God delights in our dependence upon Him. And when we blow away the fog of uncertainty created by the evil one, we are glorifying God by showing Him to be our sufficiency. Take time today to read His Word and let it speak to you, as God shows Himself to be the Savior of the world, especially to those who believe (cf. 1 Timothy 4:10). Amen.