Seek 1st

Over and over again in both the New and the Old Testament the Lord emphasizes the need for us to make Him our first priority. We all understand why it's important to place Christ at the center of our lives (because He is God and is worthy of our all), but how many times do we push Him to the background of our attentions? I know I am guilty of allowing other things (grades, work, people, even family) to become such a focus of mine that I lose sight of what is really important—Christ and Him only. This is the point when I allow things to become idols in my life.

The only way I have found to keep competing attentions from stealing away my focus on the Lord is putting Him first in my life. It takes intentionality. For me I know this summer I allowed myself to get in a morning routine of checking my Facebook before I had my devotions. The problem I found was that I would get engrossed in Facebook and would forget until later that I still hadn’t spent time with God. The time I had wasted on Facebook forced me to cut short the time I would have liked to spend with the Lord.  

The solution I found for my predicament is not getting on my computer until after I’ve spent time with the Lord. The Old Testament speaks of offering the Lord the first fruits of the harvest (Nehemiah 10:35), but couldn’t we apply the same principle of offering the Lord the BEST of our time? Whether your best time is early in the morning or late at night, let’s all choose to give the Lord our best.   

“But SEEK FIRST the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33, emphasis mine).