Priority
And God spake all these words, saying,
I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Exodus 20:1-3
The first thing to come to my mind when I read this was, wow, How awesome is our God? His people were suffering, and they couldn’t free themselves. He heard their cries, and He took action. He freed His people from their tormentors. After He had saved so many peoples’ lives, Why wouldn’t He want them to worship only Him? It makes sense to me.
Some Christians have a tendency to believe this command doesn’t apply to them because they worship God. That’s what their lives are all about isn’t it? No, we don’t worship the sun or moon, we don’t sacrifice our children to rocks, right? But no one can keep every law all the time. We have each broken every law God has given us, including the first one. When we don’t put God’s will first in our lives then we have to put something first. The something we tend to put first, is OUR will.
We are told in Matthew 26:42, that Jesus prayed for God’s will to be done. If Jesus Himself prayed this prayer, how much more so should we submit ourselves to the will of God? He could have just as easily begged for His life, and that the burden of every sin in the world be lifted from His shoulders. Even the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples contains the phrase, “THY will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
God has given us the best gift there could be. He gave us freedom from eternal death, and a new life to live for Him. When we accept the gift of God, we make a decision. We chose to either follow God, and live with His will before ours, or follow ourselves and live for ourselves. Matthew 6:24 says “No man can serve two masters.” We can not live for God and for ourselves.
God has given us a choice. He has offered each and every being the key to eternal life, but whoever accepts it makes the decision to put their old lives away and begin a new one. Whoever accepts God’s gift chooses to put His will before their own.
We can not live for both God and ourselves. It is our decision who we make our priority.
