EDUCATION - THE LORD'S CONCERN
God Priority One
( January 2006)
Reference: Ps. 119:1-16
Though we were filled with sin, God was unwilling to just let us exist in a condition that would ultimately destroy us. The consequence of sin is death as Romans 6:23 reads, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Our loving Heavenly Father couldn't allow us to live in a state in which the very thought that His relationship with us would be broken forever. We were and are His number one priority, and He designed a plan… a plan that would rescue not only us, but a world gone mad by its lust for sin-filled self-destruction. He paid the price of sin. He died for all so that we could live forever. He reached out over the sin-filled void we created, and invited us into His presence. He didn't want us to perish. We were too important to Him. Instead, He wanted us to be His friends. He died so that we could live. He died for us out of love. His resurrection guarantees us that we will live forever with our newfound Friend.
“First things first,” goes an old saying. It is one that makes sense, too. “First” implies that whatever we attach to this position ranks above all others. It is only logical to take care of this thing first.
We call this ranking of activities “prioritizing… putting things in the order of their importance. Just as God put us as the top of His priorities, we too must put God on the top of our priorities. God deserves the highest priority in our lives. God deserves our wholehearted devotion, not only because of the benefits we enjoy, but because of who He is.
We do not need to search any longer to fill the emptiness that all of us have experienced in our life. But this void can only be satisfied with the presence of the One who really loves us. If we will put God as “Top Priority” just as He put us as top priority and come to Him, we will find rest. God is everything anyone could have dreamed of. He loves us above any love we have ever known and He wants us to love Him. Mark 12:30 says it this way, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.”
This study points us toward the thing that should rank highest in any believer’s life: devotion to God. Devotion to God must be the “Top Priority” in our lives. We will begin to look at Psalm 119, the longest of the Psalms as it shows us the degree to which we should devote ourselves to God and also as it shows us the ways by which we are able to place God in the highest place on our list of priorities.
I love you guys, Bro. Doug
