I read a blog by Pastor Steven Furtick that inspired me to post this blog.
I love the month of January. I’m an extremely goal-oriented individual and I’ve discovered that reprioritizing and recalibrating your life is an essential action if you really want to actualize your potential. The month of January is the month for this to happen… but before you do, consider this…
I’m learning that many people in church have trouble with this or they fail miserably because of a spiritual ignorance. You see, most people think that they have to put JESUS first before anything else – but that’s not the case!
Before you decide to stone me, please keep reading…. By adopting the mentality of placing Jesus FIRST before anything then it implies that we ignore other things, i.e. our family or our careers. We believe that to spend time with Jesus or to work for Him we have to pull away from these other things. We want to put Jesus first but find it hard to swallow to immense sacrifice in order to do so.
SO WHAT’S THE ANSWER??
The essential problem with the thought of “putting Jesus first” is that it segregates the different priorities of life. We begin to compartmentalize areas of our lives by labeling them as “Jesus or Church” and the rest as “secular.” We give more value to the church stuff at first, but later begin to feel guilty and condemned when we have to put in “more time” with the non-church stuff.
I don’t think this is the way it was ever supposed to work. Colossians 1:15-20 repeatedly tells us that Jesus is already first before and over everything. But it also says that all things were created through and for Him. That in Him all things hold together. The aim of Christ was to reconcile all things to Himself.
So Jesus is first; He is first in order; He is first in importance and He is the first in thought. But He is so because He is the center of everything. The thing that is at the center of your lives is the thing that is ultimately first.
It’s not Jesus, then my family, but Jesus in my family. It’s not Jesus, then my career, but Jesus in my career!
I’ll share more on this during our Family Night Service. Thank-you Pastor Steven…
Blog Entry #5 – Still Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!
