<\/p>\n
\u201cTherefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the Lord Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other\u201d (Deuteronomy 4:39).<\/p>\n
GOD\u2019S UNIQUENESS IS ABSOLUTE. He alone is God \u2014 self-existent, eternal, and uncreated. And because of His uniqueness, we are to deal with Him in a way that is unlike our manner of dealing with anything else: God alone is to be worshiped.<\/em> The very first of the Ten Commandments was, \u201cYou shall have no other gods before Me\u201d (Exodus 20:3). It has always been wrong to give God\u2019s preeminence to anything other than God Himself.<\/p>\n There is an obvious tendency, however, for us to do this. Perhaps because God is unseen by our physical eyes, He does not seem as real to us, and it is hard to keep the things we can see from creeping higher up on our scale of priorities than they should be. If we\u2019re not vigilant, one or another of these tangible things can climb so high in our hearts that it displaces God as our ultimate concern. Long after this has happened, we may still be saying God is the only object of our worship, but the degree of time and enthusiasm we devote to our \u201cidol\u201d is indisputable evidence that God is no longer the most important thing in our lives.<\/p>\n It will help us to make some conscious decisions<\/em> about the priority of God. Whatever things are to be given to God, we must reserve<\/em> those things for Him. We should, in the words of the hymn by E. R. Latta, \u201crender not to any other, what alone the Lord\u2019s should be.\u201d Decisions about such priorities are best made ahead of time rather than \u201con the fly.\u201d If we wait until the moment of temptation to decide whether we will honor God, then our temptations may prove to be our undoing. When Jesus was tempted to worship the devil, His response was swift: \u201cAway with you, Satan! For it is written, \u2018You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve’\u201d (Matthew 4:10). It seems obvious that Jesus had not waited until this moment to decide whom He would wor\u00adship. Like Him, we need to chisel this conviction in stone: \u201cthe Lord Himself is God . . . there is no other.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGod is truly worshiped when someone actually gives full attention to God with feelings of awe, love, devotion, respect, and wonder. Such a moment is genuine worship. It is idolatrous to think and feel this way about anything other than God\u201d (Guigo I).<\/p>\n Gary Henry \u2013 WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com<\/p>\n