PUTTING GOD FIRST
The Bible teaches in many ways that we are to put God first. But I am sure that every believer wonders sometimes, “Am I really doing that?” On one level, everyone knows whether or not they are living for Jesus. So putting Jesus first is not a mystery. Even though we ask the question, it is one of those that we deep down already know the answer to.
This question has to do with priorities. Everybody has them. We plan our days around priorities. Lives are made up of days, so priorities determine our lives. Relationships always have to do with priorities. When someone is not being the friend or the companion that someone else needs, it is often said that we make time for what is important to us. Many relationships have been broken because one was not a priority to someone else. All of this is true when it comes to our relationship with Jesus.
Putting Jesus at the top of our list of priorities is a choice. It is a choice we can make anytime we want, but we have to continue to make it daily. Of all the information that is coming to us, we can choose that his word will be what we value most. Of all the time that we spend with other people, we can choose to make sure that he will be the last one left off the list of people that we will spend time with each day. It is just a matter of making him your top priority.
The greatest commandment is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). We know that this is the greatest commandment because that is exactly what Jesus called it. And it is easy to see that what he is saying is that we have to put everything, every part of us, into this relationship. There is no part of our lives that is left untouched by our relationship with Jesus
Paul said in Philippians 1:21, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” If we leave the statement blank, it might help us to answer the question honestly: “For to me, to live is ______.” What do we discover about ourselves? Some would have to say, “For to me to live is family.” Some would have to say it’s money. Their career. Their hobby. Most of the things that the average person would put are not bad things in and of themselves. They are wrong only because they replace God at the center of our lives.
Whatever you think about more than God can be your idol. “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). An idol is whatever replaces God on the throne of our lives. He takes first place or no place.
The key is to “walk in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16). Let following Jesus because as natural as walking in a garden. Sometimes the more we try to love someone or keep our priorities straight, the harder it becomes. When we realize that we are in Christ and Christ is in us, that we are in a relationship of love and dependence, then it becomes a lifestyle rather than a list of things to do. Being close to Jesus should be like walking and breathing. We stand in a state of grace (Romans 5:2) and we walk in the Spirit. That is talking about a way of life. If we think of it that way, it will become much simpler.
Dewayne Dunaway
