Today is…

the perfect day to be determined to make God our priority.

“And Samuel said to the whole house of Israel,’ If you are returning to the Lord with all your hearts, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods and the Ashtoreths and commit yourselves to the Lord and serve Him only, and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.’”  1 Samuel 7:3 NIV

Worship.

Faith.

Prayer.

We use all of these words when we talk about our relationship with God. Most of us believe we are sincere when we say we only worship God, that we have unwavering faith, that we believe He will fulfill His promise to us, and we pray for the right things.

God should always be first because everything comes from God. And if we are to know what our role is in the world around us, we must first go to Him. Many people do that faithfully but unfortunately others do not. Sometimes we may think we put God first, but close examination might show us that our attention to God has become more of a habit then it should be.

While it is true that doing something over and over, like praying or worshiping the Lord, will become a good habit, we might be mindful to make sure we do these things because they are as important to us as breathing or eating.

Our need for God should be the habit, and not the act of prayer or worship.

The world becomes a more confusing place on a daily basis. How tempting all of the things that money can buy quickly become if we are not careful. Is it wrong to have nice things? Absolutely not, provided the attainment of those things does not compromise our relationship with God.

We must also be wary of setting the wrong example for our loved ones. We teach by the way we live, and if our family sees us putting material possessions before God, they could easily be lead down the same path.

Nothing is more important than God.

When we place material things first, these become like idols and we don’t want that to happen. If they already have, we must look to Paul’s message to the Corinthians: “So my dear friends,  flee from the worship of idols.” 1 Corinthians 10:14 NLT

Samuel assured the people of Israel that if they were determined to put God first, God would help them. He will help any one of us as well, no matter what our needs may be.

It is important to get our priorities straight, and today is the perfect day to make sure that God is first, before all else.

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Taken from “TODAY IS….A Gift From God”, (C) 2013 Tony Casson