Dirk Taljaard

Reading from Scripture

Exodus 20:3

Worship no god but Me.

The first verse in Exodus 20 already introduces us to the Lord who rescued his people from Egypt. Elsewhere, (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) it is stated clearly: Israel, remember this! The Lord – and the Lord alone – is our God. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. Because He alone is God, no one and nothing could compare to Him… Nothing, nobody may ever be allowed to become more important in our lives.

Everyone has some concept of God - someone larger than yourself, in control of everything. This is why the Old Testament is full of examples of peoples and nations worshipping their own gods, with particular names and places of worship. Because they were mostly man-made, or declared as gods by man they were confined to some form from which they were unable to escape. They could be manipulated at will.

The God of the covenant is unique: He cannot be forced into a mould. He exists independently of man, whilst man lives by his grace; He cannot be confined to time and space, yet man has been given a specific space within a determined time frame in history; He is holy and cannot condone sin, yet, He loves sinners; the cosmos is His and yet He has given us the responsibility to look after creation, to be in this world, but not of it.

Interestingly enough, we need to think or write about God using human terminology. Learned people refer to this phenomenon as anthropomorphism. That’s why we speak about God’s hands, feet, mouth, etc. This is all because of a lack of vocabulary on our part. We will never be able to fully ‘comprehend’ Him. He transcends all of our knowledge. But what the Bible does so well, is to verbalise something of his heart: He really and truly cares for people.

We belong to a wonderful God! Praise Him for that, today and forever.

Dear Lord, help us to love You with everything at our disposal. Amen.