God does not want to be first in my life. He does not want to be my top priority. No. He wants to be the center of my existence. My life is supposed to revolve around Him and when my life, my thoughts, my words, my actions, my habits, my desires, are all centered and focused on him then my life will stop being about me and what I want and it will start being about Him and what He wants. As Ian Thomas says: “The Christian life can be explained only in terms of Jesus, and if your
life as a Christian can still be explained in terms of you – your
personality, your willpower, your gift, your talent, your money, your
courage, your scholarship, your dedication, your sacrifice, or your
anything – then although you may have the Christian life, you are not
yet living it!”
Everything in my life must flow out of my focus on, relationship with, and dependence in Him.
Dreams Ministry Etc.
Exodus 20:5 says that God is a jealous God, and that is right after the command to have no idols. I don’t think He’s prescribing that we rank the things in our life and just make sure we pay a little more attention to God than to whatever’s second on our list in order to keep Him happy.
Our God is a jealous God and He wants all our attentions, all our affections, all of our everything so that we have nothing left to give to anyone or anything else. Then, and only then, we are in the position to allow Him to love through us, to think through us, to breathe through us.
It is now “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27) who is in every breath, every look, every sound. It is “the Holy Spirit who dwells within us” (1 Tim. 1:14) who will guide every step of the life we are now living.
This is not a goal to achieve, it doesn’t even seem fully attainable in this life, but this is the life with Christ we’ve been called to and it’s a daily battle for our souls. Who will rise to the call and “fight the good fight of the faith [and] take hold of the eternal life to which you were called” (1 Tim. 6:12)?
