The first commandment calls you to a life-long response of gratitude and loving loyalty to the God who loved you and gave Himself for you.

Positively, this means cultivating affection for Him, remembering Him, appreciating Him, honouring Him, choosing Him, loving Him, and fearing Him. It means trusting Him, hoping in Him, and delighting in Him. It means calling upon Him and giving thanks to Him.

Loyalty to God means giving Him more weight in your life and in your decisions than to any other. If you face a decision where every inclination of your heart says “no,” and yet to honour God you would have to say “yes,” then you would say “yes.” Why? Because God carries more weight than every inclination of your heart.

The starting point, negatively, is to identify all sins that break the first commandment by displacing God, and then to turn from them. He is displaced by pride and infatuation. He is displaced when we allow others to bind our conscience, or when we consult the devil, mediums, or fortune tellers. Superstition, impatience with God, and complaining about God’s providence are all attempts to displace Him. So are all forms of unbelief, distrust, and despair.

The first commandment looks easy from a distance, but once you get up close, you will see how difficult it is. You may well find yourself saying to God, “I can’t even keep the first commandment. I am surrounded by other powers that control my life. I need help!”

That’s a great way to come to Jesus. Following the first commandment is a lifelong struggle, but with the help and presence of Jesus you can begin to pursue it.

What are some ways in which this command is a struggle for you?

The Ten Commandments begin with the appeal of a gracious God who is committed to the good of His people, not an appeal on the basis of raw power.

God could have said, “I am your Creator. I own the cosmos.” That’s true. He could have said, “I have more power than a million nuclear bombs, so you better knuckle down and worship me.” That’s true too. But that’s not what He said.

He said, “I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” Life in Egypt was absolutely miserable—poverty, abuse, and oppression. The Israelites were powerless, and their plight was hidden. They were trapped with no way out. There was no political process for change, no education that could qualify them for better things.

But then God stepped in and brought these desperate people out of Egypt. He rescued them and now He introduces Himself to them: “I am Yahweh. I am the one who brought you out of Egypt. I sent the plagues on your oppressors. I parted the Red Sea. I destroyed the armies of your enemies. When you cried out, nobody else was listening. But I was. Nobody else took notice of you, but I came down to help you. Nobody else saw a future for you, but I did.”

God has no obligations. He doesn’t have to do anything He doesn’t want to do. What pleased Him was to come down and set these hopeless people free. “Now,” He said, “I am your God. You belong to me. You are mine.” You will never be ready to embrace God fully until you are convinced that He is good.

How do you hear God’s appeal?

Take a moment to consider where you stand in relation to the Ten Commandments. Here are three possibilities:

Some of us think we’ve climbed the wall. A man was talking with Jesus about the Ten Commandments, and he said, “I’ve kept them all!” He hadn’t murdered anyone, told any whopping lies, or raided a bank. He was a good citizen who flossed his teeth and paid his taxes, but he misunderstood the commands. They aren’t limited to actions, and if you’ve never struggled to keep them, it’s probably time to get started.

Some of us are stretched out on the wall. Maybe God’s called you to work in a hostile environment and the pressures are enormous. You’re exhausted from the struggle. The fact that you’re struggling means you are on the wall. The Heidelberg Catechism asks about the Ten Commandments:

Q: Can those converted to God obey them perfectly?

A: No. In this life, even the holiest have only a small beginning of this obedience. Nevertheless… they do begin to live according to all, not only some, of God’s commandments.

Christians make a beginning of integrity, a beginning of worship, and a beginning of contentment, but it is a true beginning, and one day it will be complete.

Some of us have fallen off the wall. There was a time when you were walking with Christ, but you lost your footing. Maybe it was a workaholic lifestyle, an unresolved conflict, or a secret deception. Thank God for His mercy. If it was not for God’s mercy, you would be lost forever. But mercy’s rope held you. You are not where you used to be, but there is hope for you. Get back on the wall and start climbing.

Where do you stand?

The law is like a tutor, a coach, or a mentor. The law, properly understood, will walk you to Jesus Christ. It’s just like a good mentor who shows you where you need to go and then is willing to walk with you so that you get there.

This is precisely what the law, applied by the Spirit, will do in the life of a person. The law will show you where you need to go (the kind of life that God calls you to live), and then it will walk you to Christ.

If you start trying to live out the Ten Commandments, it won’t be long before you’re saying, “I desperately need some help.” If you start examining yourself and looking at yourself honestly in the light of these commandments, it won’t be long before you come to the conclusion that you’re a long way from the life that God has called you to lead.

And this isn’t true only for newer believers. Even if you’ve been a Christian for 10, 20, or 50 years, the commandments will still keep doing this for you. The longer you walk with Christ, the more you will come to see your own sinfulness, and the more eagerly you will cling to Christ. Discovering the commandments will increase your appreciation of Jesus.

When was the last time you experienced the commandments mentoring you like this in your own life? What happened?

Let’s review the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20 and name our greatest struggles.

10. Your struggle with contentment: You shall not covet (20:17). Something within us wants more.

9. Your struggle with truth: You shall not bear false witness (20:16). Sometimes it isn’t easy to handle the truth.

8. Your struggle for integrity: You shall not steal (20:15). What can you be trusted with?

7. Your struggle with purity: You shall not commit adultery (20:14). Does anyone find this one easy? Purity is a struggle.

6. Your struggle for peace: You shall not murder (20:13). How do you bring peace in a world filled with trouble?

5. Your struggle with authority: Honour your father and your mother (20:12). Who hasn’t struggled with some authority figure?

4. Your struggle with time: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (20:8). It’s a struggle to master time and establish order.

3. Your struggle with religion: You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain (20:7). The world is full of people claiming God’s name for their own cause.

2. Your struggle to worship: You shall not make for yourself a carved image (20:4). Our impulse is to bring God down to our level.

1. Your struggle with God: You shall have no other gods before me (20:3). It isn’t easy to let God be God.

Rate your experience with each of the commands from 1 (no struggle) to 10 (great struggle)

Life is a struggle. It is also an adventure. Like climbing a rock face, it is a dangerous business. But it is magnificently worth it. There will be moments of triumph as you conquer some dangerous part of the climb. But there’s always another challenge ahead.

The entire Christian life is spent on the rock face, and one day you’ll stand at the summit, but not until you’re with Jesus.

Some of us have been Christians for years. We’ve made some progress, but we’re still climbing. The most dangerous place for any climber is when you think it’s getting easier. It’s possible to climb the most difficult face and then get careless and slip.

If you’re a new Christian, you might think that someone you look up to (a Christian for many years) bounces out of bed every morning and spends hours in prayer, knows exactly what to do in every situation, and never struggles with unworthy thoughts. In short, he or she has it a lot easier than you! But actually, the struggle of the Christian life never gets any easier.

The Christian life is a struggle from the moment of your new birth to the moment of your entrance into the presence of Jesus. If you are a climber, it helps to have experience. But experience never takes the struggle out of the climb.

As we look at the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) together, we’re going to see that these are the ten greatest struggles of our lives. This shouldn’t be surprising. Nobody knows you better than God does. He made you and He knows everything about you, including your struggles.

Did you know that God is aware of your greatest struggles?

The whole life of Jesus had been in the hands of His Father, and now at His death, Jesus committed His spirit into the Father’s hands.

Here’s what happens at death to a believer—your spirit goes into the immediate presence of God: To be “away from the body” is to be “at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). Whatever happens to your body, your spirit is safe in the Father’s hands.

Your body may be ravaged with cancer. Your body may be horribly injured in an accident or even lost at sea. Whatever happens to your body, your spirit will be safe in the hands of God.

In the Father’s hands is a marvellous place to be! Jesus had been in the hands of sinners (Mat. 26:45), but at His death He placed His spirit in the Father’s hands. The Father’s hands are eternally secure. No one can snatch you out of the Father’s hands (John 10:28).

There is a story about a man whose wife died from a sudden illness. His life was devastated, and he was really struggling when someone said to him, “You can’t tell her what you want to say, but she’s in the Father’s hands. You can ask the Father to tell her for you.” In life, in death, and for all eternity, there is no better place to be than in the Father’s hands.

Do you believe there’s no better place to be after you die than in the Father’s hands? How about while you are here on earth?

Do you see the significance of these words? The hell was over. The price was paid. The infinite agonies endured by the Son of God had passed, and the light of the Father’s love now shone on Him again.

Did you notice how Jesus died? If you have ever been with a family member when he or she died, you know that nobody dies with a loud voice. If you’ve got a loud voice, it’s because you still have more time. Nobody speaks in a loud voice at the moment of death, but Jesus did, and the reason for this is that He wasn’t overwhelmed by death. He didn’t run out of strength. Death didn’t overcome Him.

Here is Jesus’ own explanation: “No one takes it [my life] from me... I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:18). Christ’s life was not taken by death; it was given. He gave Himself in death: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46).

Jesus entered death, not with a whisper of defeat, but with a shout of triumph—“It is finished!” The apostle Mark comments, “When the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” (Mark 15:39). Do you see the glory of Jesus’ death? No one ever died like that.

What does it mean to you to know that Jesus triumphed over death?