First Commandment
You will love the Eternal God with all your heart
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to the house of bondage; shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make any graven image of what is in heaven above, nor what is in the earth beneath, nor of what is in acquaint underground. Do not prostrate before them or worship them".
(Ex 20,2-5)
It is written: "Worship the Lord your God and him only you shall serve".
(Mt 4,10)
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You shall worship the Lord
Man is inclined not only to fall in vices through the lusts, but to raise the same to their idols. After all, no one can by his own efforts escape the temptations that can generate, if left unchecked, uncontrollable lusts and desires. To defeat them successfully and not fall into guilty distractions, the will should be established and commitment to this noble goal.
The human feeling does not escape the law of firmness and the will. Every love to stay this should be, in fact, powered at all times of our existence, or distractions, banishing the thought and the promises of fidelity, they will lapse into oblivion.
If as has been stated, the thought is the source of action, then you need to keep it free of distractions not to leave him free to be captured by all that passes under our senses. In that case, our actions cannot depend on the will of our free will, but it will subject to cravings.
The Golden Calf
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, gathered themselves to Aaron, and said, "Come, make us gods who go before us; for this Moses, the man that brought us out of Egypt , we do not know what happened to "... and He took them from their hands, they melted the gold and made a calf of it. And they exclaimed: "O Israel, this is your god, who has delivered you out of Egypt!" [...] When Moses saw the unbridled people, for Aaron had let them abandon idolatry, making it the mockery of his opponents, he stopped on the gate of the camp and shouted, "Who is the Lord? ... To me ! ". And they gathered around him the sons of Levi. He commanded them, "said the Lord God of Israel: Each of you put on his sword: go around the field, from one side, and each one kill his brother, friend, relative". The sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and on that day perished among about three thousand men.
The people who had been brought as on eagles' wings toward their God, as well as had been freed from the slavery of Egypt, the same people who said: "We will do all that the Lord said," now it had created an idol: the golden calf.
Idols, even if you cannot represent, there are expressions of our desires, we can chained to their will to make us slaves and become, finally, the only reason for our living. Countless are our idols: power, money, sex, success, the works of human genius, self-affirmation, to name a few. Our idols can coexist with fidelity to God? Evidently not: "No servant can serve two masters: for either one will hate the one and love and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon".
(Mt 6,24)
"I am the Lord your God".
In every moment we can transpose the presence of God, in the melodiousness of the gurgling spring water, the sweetness of the scent of flowers in the spring breeze whisper, but also in the wonderful charm of nature all that lush, she sings his wonders: from 'humble blade of grass, the shining star of the firmament, from insignificant grain of sand, the immensity of outer space, the small drop of dew, the immensity of the seas.
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me".
It is a command not to create idols and become slaves. We should not raise altars not true gods as did the people of Israel. Only in God can we find the end of every action and the meaning of each order. It is our Creator, our Savior, the One who loves us, the meaning and purpose of our lives.
Only those who can be united with God constantly through prayer will remain free from the gods of the world. In Him we find the true love and learn to be faithful to him to be able to accomplish in this life and make a serious claim of an eternity of bliss.
The first commandment is an act of love for ourselves as it reveals to us the way to be truly men or women. All sins arise from the sin of idolatry, that believe in God in all that is man-made: money, career, power, sex, their bodies, sports etc.
"This commandment which I command you is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, who shall go up for us to heaven, and let us hear and take it away from him we can run? It is not beyond sea that you should say: who will cross the sea for us to take it away from and let us hear and we can run? But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that put into action".
(Dt 30, 11-14)
Reflection
You shall have no other God but me
In the first commandment God invites us to give him our love even in the poverty of our human nature however we often forget to give devotion to God, because we think we are gods, but in reality we are just dust.
Yet God's greatness can be felt through creation, His Presence blows in the whisper of the wind, rises in the whirlwind of the winds, penetrates the consciousness of each of us and is a presence that whispers, speaks, enlightens, teaches, assists, loves. God raises his voice and proclaims, "I am your Lord and your God! Everything sings, "I am the Lord your God." There is no moment of the day when He does not make these words resound, for the universe is the fruit of His love.
God must be the goal of our every action and the meaning of our lives; whoever accepts his word will live forever: "If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death" (John 8:51). Then we must accept his words and adhere to his teachings, recognizing him as the only guide. In the Bible, God always begins and ends his interventions with the formula: "I am the Lord!"
I called to the Lord not with the voice of the body, whose sonority results from the vibration of the air, but with the voice of the heart, which is silent to men, but before God resounds as a cry. (Saint Augustine).
