Teach your children to put God first

Commandment I:
You shall have no other gods before me.
Exodus 20:3

Understanding and obeying the Ten Commandments leads to a good life. This commandment tells us that first place must always be given to God and His Word to bring about that good.

Three important ideas to teach your children from the first commandment:

First:
God must not be displaced by anything else in life no matter how good because nothing is more good than God.

Second:
The One who created us is God and He is the One true God—any substitute is a “false god.”

Third:
The Ten Commandments are the moral standard for all people as the universal conscience for all time. 

The first four of the Ten Commandments, commonly called the FIRST TABLE tell our duty to God. It was fit that those should be put first, because man had a Maker to love, before he had a neighbour to love. It cannot be expected that he should be true to his brother, who is false to his God.

Mathew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible

All Christian nations have accepted these Ten Commandments…as appealing to the universal conscience, —not a mere Jewish code, but primary law, susceptible of boundless obligation, never to be abrogated; a direct injunction of the Almighty to the end of time.

Nation Makers: the Art of Self-Government, 70

Consider and Ponder: How does identifying and avoiding false gods lead to a good world?

Excerpted from Nation Makers: the Art of Self-Government, by Verna M. Hall and Rosalie J. Slater, edited by Carole G. Adams. Previously published as Rudiments of America’s Christian History by the Foundation for American Christian History (FACE), page 70.