For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing (II Timothy 4:6-8).
As I begin the second post in this series it is important to remember that outside of God, nothing that exists could exist. In the book of Revelation Jesus is referred to as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending (Revelation 1:8). In the Gospel of John that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). It seems that for Christians it would make sense to place God as our life’s first priority based on his sovereignty alone. When you add that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life, common sense would seem to raise the importance of placing God in the place of honor in out lives (John 3:16).
What we see around us are Christians whose lives are filled with chaos, turmoil, and heartache. Instead of their first priority in life and of love being the worship and service due to God, they’ve allowed their spouse, their job, their position in the church, or maybe their kids to take center stage. They’ve relegated God to the closet or corner of their life and have put other things ahead of God. Our first priority in life must be our relationship with God; outside of that we are creating other gods and idols that will consume our lives.
In Genesis we see that God created man special by giving him the breath of life; it was God’s plan to be able to fellowship and commune with Adam and Eve in a very real and physical way – by walking alongside them in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8-9). This was they way God had intended it to be until sin came into the picture – Eve placed the forbidden fruit ahead of God and Adam willfully put Eve as the top priority in his life.
Since then, sin has dominated the life of man. We are saved from our sins by the grace of God through the completed work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is because of the high cost of our salvation – the death of the Son of God on the cross – that we should present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service, as stated so eloquently yet simple by the apostle Paul (Romans 12:1). Without God, we would not have our physical life; without Christ, we would not have an eternal life, but an eternal separation from God in the lake of fire.
The lost world ridicules thou shalt have no other God before me offering strict criticism and rebuke for those who truly seek to put God first in their lives (Exodus 20:3). They scoff and mock For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God and claim that how can anyone seriously serve a deity that destroys those who oppose him. It is hard for those who do not believe in God to place him as a priority; for Christians, we have become so tainted by the world view and definition of who God is that we tend to forget how important our relationship with him actually is.
Sociologists and psychologists have determined that it takes about 80 hours of personal contact before we let our guard down and befriend someone. It is important that we spend time with God in our lives through prayer, meditation and studying of the Bible, sharing of the gospel message with others, and in church services as we worship and fellowship with other believers (Hebrews 10:25). In our daily prayers,we need to lift up our enemies (Matthew 5:44), our daily needs (Matthew 6:11), and pray from our hears and just be honest with God (Matthew 6:7). We need to read our Bibles on a daily basis with the exact same intensity that we read, study, and review materials for our work (II Timothy 2:15). We need to share our faith with those we know and meet each day (Mark 16:15).
