There was a man that went to the doctor and said his whole body hurt. From the top of his head to the bottom of his feet he was in pain. Every place he touched brought graphic pain to him. The doctor said, “Now this thing is very unusual”. The doctor said to the man, “Touch your forehead”, the man said “ah”. The doctor said, “Wow touch you elbow” the man went ah. The doctor said, “My goodness touch your knee”, he man said, “Ah”. Again the doctor says, “Touch your toe”, the man hollers “AH”. The doctor looks at the man and says, Idiot you have a dislocated finger”. It felt like everything was wrong when there was only one thing wrong, and if he ever gets this one thing right, then all the other pain he thought he was going through would be rectified.
-A lot of us have a whole bunch wrong. We feel like our world, our lives, our direction, our purpose, and our relationships, you name it and it looks like there’s a whole bunch wrong. God is helping me to realize that it’s not really a whole bunch of things; it’s really just one thing. And if you and I ever get this one thing right it affects everything. It is the center piece of Kingdom living, it is the center piece of virtuous living, it is the center piece of Godly living, and it’s the center piece of our meaning in life.
Jesus says in Matthew 6:33 but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
To me this is the one thing that if we get this right everything else falls in line. We have to focus on the word first; because once that word gets lost our experience with God gets diminished. God and His Kingdom demand to be first. The problem in most of our lives is that God and His kingdom are not first. Over and over in the bible you will see God talking to his people he says bring unto me the first fruits. Not the left overs, not after you’ve done your thing, but he demands to be first. He said to the church at Ephesus you have left your first love.
In 2 Corinthians 8 the Macedonians gave themselves first to the Lord; before they did anything else they took care of that first. It is the absence of the word first, that has created everything else.
We should seek first the rule of God or his in chargeness over our lives. So here is my question for the day….when you or I have to make a decision where do you go to first? When we need guidance who do we talk to first? For so many people and Christians God is the spare tire….He is the thing when nothing else has worked and we want know why our worlds are falling apart.
Do we go to Gods word first, or do we talk to our friends first?
Do you get Gods perspective first, or do you get the worlds perspective first?
We wonder why we’re not hearing from God and he says because you come to me last!
We become Kingdom Christians when God’s perspective is appealed to first, when his agenda is appealed to first. Which means we consult his word before we get everyone else opinion. Or you talk to people that’s going to give you God’s word before you get the general view. Until that little switch is made in our thinking, and in my practice we will feel all of this pain all over and only one thing is wrong. So we’ll go to this person for the knee, and this person for the foot, and this person for the nose, and this person for the ear, and God is saying Idiot your finger is dislocated.
After reading through verse 25 going through verse 35 I have finally got it. If I just put God first all my anxiety is solved. When he’s first my concern about everything doesn’t have to go haywire. The reason why everything has been bothering me so much on the trip is because I lost sight of who comes first. It’s not me, it’s not the ministry that I do from country to country, but it is God.
