Vital Signs: Monday, May 19, 2025

No Other Gods

“Listen to me, O my people, while I give you stern warnings. O Israel, if you would only listen to me! You must never have a foreign god; you must not bow down before a false god. For it was I, the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it with good things.” ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭81‬:‭8‬-‭10‬ ‭NLT‬‬

It only makes sense to me that if the Father in heaven is giving such stern warnings to the children of Israel, then those same warnings would be for those of us who are grafted into the vine today. Because God is a jealous God who will share His glory with no one, it should not be hard for us to understand that God will not show favor on our lives when we bring foreign gods into the equation. It’s when we bow down to the things of this world—the little g’s—that we get ourselves into serious trouble. Can you blame Him for being so righteously angry? We must remember it was Him who delivered us from our sin, from our shame, from our addiction, from our doomed condition that we could not fix on our own. It is our big G God that has delivered us from our Egypt. May we open our mouths with praise, and may we open our mouths to shout to the ends of the Earth the good news of the gospel. Why? So that our mouth may be filled with good things from our great big and one true God.