Only God Part 2

 

    The first commandment is to have no other gods.  That commandment means to put God first.  He comes before your spouse, children, job, church, friends, activities, enemies, and everything else.  To be honest it takes work to put God first.  Life is full of distractions and that is not an accident.  Human nature is to embrace making yourself the god of your life.  Then you have Satan.  If he can't make you sin, then he will make you busy where you don't put God first.  

    You have to be intentional to keep God first in your life.  You have to prioritize time with Him.  You have to prioritize prayer in the good times and not leave it to when it is hard.  You have to invest into the relationship or it will become stagnant.  If you allow the relationship to become stagnant, then you have broken the first commandment.  

    God's commandments are not a list of rules.  They are boundaries for you lifestyle.  They reveal how much you really need God.  Jesus came into this world to teach you how to apply them to your life.  How they all set you up for a Christian lifestyle because to sum them up everything you do you do in love.  It is your love for God that allows you to live like Jesus.

    Take inventory of your life.  What do you occasionally or constantly put before your relationship with God?  Do you put desires, habits, people, activities, or needs before God.  You are in your head 100 percent of the time.  It is hard to push your inner thoughts to the side to listen to the Holy Spirit unless you are practicing listening and obeying.  

    It takes intentional practice to silent your thoughts and the distractions of life to hear the Holy Spirit directing you in your decisions and keep you on God's path.  It is your choice to destroy or remove permanently any distraction that the Holy Spirit convicts you of putting before God.

    Your relationship with God is personal.  Your path is personalized according to that relationship, but it always starts the same way.  You have to believe in Jesus, declare your faith, and decide to follow him no matter what.  Your discipleship training will be according to what you need to work on, surrender to God, and learn.  God will place people in your life that will walk through it with you and help you in your journey, but it is your journey.  

Deuteronomy 4:35-38, 6:4-9, Judges 6:25-26, 8:22, Isaiah 44:6-8, 45:1-7, Mark 12:29-31, Romans 1:21-23, 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, Ephesians 4:5-6, 1 Timothy 2:1-7, & James 2:19-20