gods

Exodus 20:3

You shall have no other gods before Me.

Those of you who notice such things will see that I left this title in lowercase. That’s intentional. These little-g-gods don’t get to have the respect of capital letters. It’s a little visual cue for us to differentiate between the person of Yahweh, whose Name is capitalized as God. If you’re paying close attention, you’ll also see that I capitalize pronouns when they refer to God’s person: He, His, etc. Again, this is a visual way to cue the reader to the respect this Name (see the capital N?) is given by me, the writer. 

On the original Old Testament scrolls, His Name is never written completely. If you could read the ancient scrolls, you’ll see the Name of YHWH, never Yahweh. In old translations of the scrolls, scribes had several ways to accord respect to the Name of God. There is evidence that they would use only a single, special writing utensil that was devoted to writing His Name, possibly even washing their hands before and after using it. Sometimes that Name was written as G-D. The elders of the faith considered His name to be too holy and unapproachable to write in full.

I’m thankful that practice has fallen away. I know I'm not good enough to approach such a holy, lofty Being whose very Name is too precious to write. I think many of us feel this way deep down. It’s why we prefer the Jesus of the New Testament rather than the God of the Old. Jesus feels more approachable, more–dare I say–human. We think that Old Testament God is wrathful and distant.

If we can agree that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, the three-Person-God, there is also a third: the Spirit of God; the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost–in Hebrew, Ruach Elohim. Maybe this Being feels more nebulous or intangible; less than real. Maybe you don't know much about Him. There aren't as many churches who teach about the Holy Spirit.

But I want to offer this lesson: He is as close as the very breath we breathe.

In Hebrew scripture, Ruach Elohim refers to the active, invisible power and presence of God infusing all creation. Ruach Elohim has power, energy and movement.

Genesis 1:2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God (Ruach Elohim) was hovering over the face of the waters.

In the book of Job, we find that Job's friend, Elihu, rightly claims, "The Spirit of God has made me and the Breath of the Almighty gives me life." (Job 33:4) The Holy Spirit is the Person of the Trinity who brings God's life-giving presence into creation, refreshes and renews life and makes God's presence active and present among us.

There is another word in Genesis 2:7 used for the breath God breathes into the lungs of His creation, Adam. This word is neshamah. Think of the gentle exhale you might use when you’re face to face with someone, close enough to feel their breath. This gentle breath from the mouth of God is how He brings Adam to life. 

These words come together in Genesis 7:22 when the text describes the death of all living things in Noah's flood: "Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died." The neshamah—the breath of life—was gone. The Ruach, the breath and life-giving Spirit that God had breathed into creation, was no longer sustaining them. The same breath that had first brought life to Adam was now absent and the creatures of the earth died. Take note of this: our lives are not self-generated.

Every breath is received.

Every breath is sustained.

Every breath is a gift.

Friends, we breathe the name of God with every exhale of our life.

This is not a distant, unapproachable God. This is a God who gave us His very Name with every breath we breathe from birth to death. I don’t need to fear One who accompanies me this way. Instead, this gives me a perspective to know Him better. 

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Let’s now consider our verse where we began: You shall have no other gods before Me. (Exodus 20:3)

If you’ve spent some time in a faith community, you may recognize this as one of the Ten Commandments; the very first one, to be precise. It seems like a pretty straightforward rule: God is God and He says that we shouldn’t worship anything above Him. This glosses past an important detail, though. One that MANY people will be uncomfortable with if we drill down on it: that there are other gods in the world. And if God has decided to put this rule first on the list, He probably thinks it's important. What He knows about us is that humans will probably have a tendency to worship them instead of the One True God.

Let me be quick to say that there have been books and tomes written about this subject. If you want to dig into this idea, you can certainly go a long way down this path. (I recommend The Unseen Battle by Dr. Joel Muddamalle.) 

I don’t want to take the space to do that here, or we would wind up with a publishable manuscript. Instead, I want to put before you that this is a defensible fact: There are other spirits and principalities, not just abstract ideas, that try to occupy the place in our hearts that rightfully belongs to Yahweh. In the Old Testament, you’ll come across names like Baal or Asherah or Molech or the Prince of Persia. These are real spirits that are often called “gods”—spiritual powers that ancient peoples worshipped instead of Yahweh.

These gods do not offer life. They take. Worship of these little-g-gods would become increasingly demanding, requiring more and more of the worshipper: their possessions, their loyalty, their bodies, their future and ultimately, even human life. Scripture records the ancient practice of child sacrifice to the Caananite god Molech, and even blames the downfall of the kingdom of Israel to this practice in 2 Kings 17:17. These gods demand everything. At their most extreme, they even demand death.

I daresay this is horrifying to us standing in 2026. The idea that someone could worship a god that demanded the life of their own child seems almost unimaginable. And yet, we have certainly heard stories of people losing their own lives to addiction; of people losing a marriage to lust for another person; of parents sacrificing their families in the relentless pursuit of power, success, or money. We may not bow down before statues of Baal or Molech, but we are still capable of giving ourselves over to things that demand more of us than we were initially prepared to give. Make no mistake: these are gods, too—not gods who give life, but things we elevate to the place of God and which ultimately exact the death of dreams, livelihoods, even lives.

There was a French philosopher in the 17th century named Blaise Pascal (this isn’t going to be on a test!) who wrote with exceptional skill about a phrase that can be summed up like this: There is a God-shaped hole in everyone’s heart. I learned about this phrase many years ago (it was on my test) and have never forgotten it. I see evidence of it every single day. I experience it in my own life every single day. 

We are all chasing something. 

We are all trying to scratch that itch that doesn’t want to go away.

Some of us are chasing careers or family. Some of us are chasing fame or influencer-status. Some of us are after knowledge, more and more of it until we understand that thing. Some of us are running away from the thing that is actually a hole that wants to suck us back in. 

All these things can be little-g-gods, demanding our attention or our livelihood. Demanding our best, our futures, our relationships.

They are not always inherently evil. Sometimes they can even be good things, like service at church or knowledge of the Word of God. When we want to know the things more than we want to chase The One, we have encountered a god of our own making.

But we MUST be vigilant against anything that might take over that throne of our heart. We MUST guard against the things we find ourselves throwing into that hole in our hearts, hoping something fills the void.

Nothing can. 

That void in our hearts is infinite and only an infinite God can take up that space in a way that completes us. 

There is literally nothing else that will work. 

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If you have become aware of that void in your heart, you’re in the right place.

If you have never heard of that void, but something about the idea resonates with you, you’re in the right place.

I don’t have all the answers, but I have this answer.

This answer is as close as the breath you breathe.

The answer you’re looking for is the Sustainer of all life around you and He can breathe new life into you. Into a life that has become lackluster, exhausting. Into the life you thought was dead and buried.

In case I haven’t been clear enough, the Answer to all the questions you’ve ever asked is God, Himself. 

If you want to know Him, all you have to do is breathe.

Then the first step is to talk to Him. In your mind, out loud, whatever works where you are. 

He‘s just there, waiting to hear from you!