Putting God First

 The first of the Ten Commandments is God’s invitation for us to know Him.  “You shall have no other gods before me,” (Exodus 20:3). This is amazing. The creator of the universe wants to have a personal relationship with us in which He alone takes first place.  If He is not first in our life, He is not God. Everything starts here.  Life comes into focus when God becomes the priority of our life.

 Sometimes we are drawn away from God by personal pleasures. Sometimes we are drawn away by things that simply make us too busy for God.  We think we know what is best and we pursue our goals and dreams without taking time to submit those goals and dreams to God.  

 Peter discovered that putting God first meant surrendering his personal prejudices.  Following a vision on a rooftop in Joppa in which God instructed him not to consider anything unclean that God had declared clean, Peter was invited to visit a Roman Centurion in Caesarea. When he arrived, the Centurion had assembled his family and friends to welcome Peter.  Peter said, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean,” (Acts 10:28).  After Peter explained to them what God had done in Jesus Christ, they immediately trusted Christ, received the Holy Spirit and were baptized.  When Peter shared this experience at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, the early church immediately opened its doors to receive believers from all nations.

 We are living in a day when racial, religious and cultural prejudice have become widespread. If we put God first, like Peter, we must surrender our prejudices and accept others who differ in language, culture and ethniciy.

 The best-known Christian hymn of all time is Amazing Grace. It is the one hymn that is almost universally known and sung. We all know the lyrics, “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but know I see.” The song was written by John Newton, who captained several slave ships, and invested in slavery until he came to faith in Christ.  When God became first in his life, he renounced his former life, became an evangelical pastor and a staunch abolitionist.  We cannot obey the first commandment without surrendering our prejudices.  

 John wrote, “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen,” (1 John 4:20).

 Jesus set the example.  He purposely entered Samaria and welcomed the adulterous Samaritan woman.  He accepted lepers, tax collectors, and said of a Roman centurion, “I have not seen such faith in all of Israel.”  In The Revelation, John described Heaven, “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb,” (Revelation 7:9).