The First Commandment: Giving God Our Whole Heart

The first commandment stands at the head of God’s moral law because our relationship with our Creator shapes every other part of life. Before the Lord tells us how to use his name, keep his day, or love our neighbor, he establishes his exclusive claim upon us. Questions 103 and 104 of the Westminster Larger Catechism explain both the command itself and the wholehearted devotion it requires:

Q. 103: “What is the first commandment?”

“The first commandment is, ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’”

Q. 104: “What are the duties required in the first commandment?”

“The duties required in the first commandment are the following:

• knowing and acknowledging God to be the only true God, and our God;

• worshipping and glorifying him accordingly, by thinking, meditating, remembering, highly esteeming, honoring, adoring, choosing, loving, desiring, and fearing him;

• believing him;

• trusting, hoping, delighting, and rejoicing in him;

• being zealous for him;

• calling on him;

• giving all praise and thanks and yielding all obedience and submission to him with our whole person;

• being careful to please him in all things and being sorrowful when he is offended in anything;

• and walking humbly with him.”

  
  

These answers show us that the first commandment concerns far more than refusing to bow before a carved image. It requires God to occupy his rightful place in our minds, hearts, worship, choices, and daily lives.

The First Commandment Begins with Knowing God

The duties of the first commandment begin with “knowing and acknowledging God to be the only true God, and our God.” We cannot worship God rightly if we do not know him truthfully.

David therefore instructed Solomon, “Know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind” (1 Chronicles 28:9). Solomon was not merely to know facts about God. He was to know God personally and serve him sincerely.

God declared through Isaiah, “You are my witnesses…that you may know and believe me and understand that I AM he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me” (Isaiah 43:10). The first commandment rests upon this reality: there is only one true and living God. Nothing else deserves our worship, confidence, or ultimate allegiance.

Yet the catechism adds two important words: “our God.” The first commandment is not merely an acknowledgment that God exists. It is a covenant confession that he is our God. As Israel declared, “The LORD is our God, and we will walk in his ways” (Deuteronomy 26:17). True faith says more than, “There is a God.” It says, “This God has made himself known, and by grace I belong to him.”

The First Commandment Claims the Whole Heart

Because God is the only true God, he rightly claims our whole person. Deuteronomy 6:5 commands, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

The catechism carefully describes what wholehearted love for God looks like. We are to think about him, meditate upon him, remember him, highly esteem him, honor him, adore him, choose him, love him, desire him, and fear him.

These duties reach into our entire life. The first commandment is broken long before someone visibly bows before an idol. It is broken whenever God becomes distant from our thoughts or secondary in our affections.

David describes the heart God requires: “When I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night” (Psalm 63:6). Asaph also confesses, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25).

That does not mean we may not love our families, enjoy God’s gifts, or pursue our callings. It means none of these may take God’s place. Every good gift must be received from him, enjoyed under him, and used for his glory.

The First Commandment Calls Us to Trust and Delight in God

The first commandment also requires us to believe God and to trust, hope, delight, and rejoice in him. God must be more than the object of our religious activity. He must be the confidence and joy of our hearts.

“Trust in the LORD forever,” Isaiah writes, “for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock” (Isaiah 26:4). When circumstances change, God remains unchanging. When the people around us are unfaithful, he remains faithful. When our hearts are troubled, we may still “hope in the LORD,” because with him there is steadfast love and redemption (Psalm 130:7).

This trust should also produce delight. Psalm 37:4 commands, “Delight yourself in the LORD.” We do not merely submit to God because he is powerful. We rejoice in him because he is good. The first commandment calls us to find our greatest treasure, deepest security, and highest satisfaction in God himself.

This gives us an important question for self-examination: Where do we instinctively turn for security, identity, comfort, and joy? Whatever we trust most deeply can quietly become a rival to God.

The First Commandment Shapes Worship and Obedience

Wholehearted devotion to God must become visible. “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God” (Psalm 95:6–7).

Jesus repeated this truth when Satan tempted him: “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve” (Matthew 4:10). Worship belongs exclusively to God, but it cannot be confined to a weekly service. We worship him by calling upon him in prayer, giving him praise and thanks, obeying his Word, and submitting every area of life to his authority.

God says in Jeremiah 7:23, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people.” Obedience does not earn a relationship with God. Rather, obedience flows from belonging to God. Because he is our God, we desire to please him.

Our prayer life also reveals our dependence upon him. Philippians 4:6 teaches us to bring everything to God “by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.” Prayer confesses that God is our help, our provider, and our hope.

The First Commandment Produces Sorrow and Humility

Love for God also changes how we respond to sin. The catechism teaches us to be “sorrowful when he is offended in anything.” The psalmist cried, “My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law” (Psalm 119:136).

We should grieve over the sins of the world, but we must begin with our own. When we recognize that we have distrusted God, neglected his worship, loved other things more than him, or sought our satisfaction apart from him, we should return to him in repentance.

We cannot keep the first commandment perfectly. Only Jesus loved, trusted, worshiped, and obeyed the Father without failure. At the cross, he bore the guilt of our idolatry and divided hearts. Through faith in him, we are forgiven, reconciled to God, and renewed by the Holy Spirit to love God more faithfully.

Therefore, we walk with God in humble dependence upon grace. As Micah 6:8 teaches, the Lord requires us “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Living the First Commandment Every Day

The first commandment calls us to give God more than outward religious observance. He requires our minds, affections, confidence, worship, obedience, and joy. He alone must be our God.

So let us ask: Do I know God, or do I merely know about him? Do I trust him when life becomes uncertain? Do I delight in him, call upon him, and seek to please him? Am I grieved when I sin against him? Am I walking humbly with him?

The God who commands our wholehearted devotion is also the God who has graciously given himself to us in Jesus Christ. Because he has said, “I am your God,” we may respond with faith, worship, obedience, and joy: “You alone are my God, and there is no other.”

Soli Deo Gloria