How much easier can our lives be walking with the Lord? Try this; put the Lord first always. It becomes painfully evident that all God wants from us is to be first in our lives. First, is the place of honor. It is the place of worship. Whoever is first gets the glory. Life is a struggle to put Him first and to keep Him there. Since He is the one who should get all the glory, He is the only one that should ever occupy that space.
In order to put Him first in our lives, there is someone that must be evicted. It might surprise you to find out who that is. I will not keep you in suspense. We are the guilty party. We must evict ourselves from the place the Lord should occupy in our lives. When the serpent approached Eve, he did so by appealing to her ego; telling her if she ate of the fruit God told her not to eat, that she would be like Him. She moved God out and moved herself in. Unfortunately, on a daily basis by the decisions we make, we are moving God out and moving ourselves in. When we responded to somebody in an ungodly fashion we moved God out, moved ourselves in and said, “How dare they speak to me like that!” Our response is as if we sit at the place of honor in our life.
Not too long after Eve, we are told by the Bible that men began to build a tower to the heavens to make a name for themselves. They declined to give God His due when they should have realized that it was He who was allowing them to do all within their power. The Lord quickly recognized their self-aggrandizement and had to confuse them with many different languages to stop them from their pursuit. I wonder how many times the Lord had to confuse us to stop us from building things for our glory and not for His. There is a good chance that the difficulty we are now facing is because we are trying to do our thing rather than God’s thing.
When He brought Israel out of Egypt and gave them commandments to live by, the first commandment was “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:3) The Lord wanted Israel to know that without a doubt, He was to always be first. With the second commandment of not making an idol, He told Israel that He was a jealous God. He didn’t like the idea of somebody or something occupying His space. By the things we are doing do we have a jealous lover? Are we giving what belongs to God to others who are really no gods at all?
Many times the only reason we cannot obey the Voice of the Lord is because we are worried about ourselves. What would people think? What would people say? Would I be disrespected? Could I handle the pain, rebuke, or abuse? All our questions hinge on ourselves. There is no real consideration about what is God desiring from us.
Jesus was speaking to a woman at a well in John 4:4-26 when he informed her about true worshippers. “God is a Spirit and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” (vs. 24) If the Lord is going to occupy the place of worship in your life, flesh or ego cannot also be present. You must leave everything about your wants and feelings behind and step into your spiritual surroundings to give God the glory He richly deserves. It is the search for truth that truly glorifies the Lord. It is the acknowledgment that my stuff is flawed and I must seek and apply what is not flawed from Whom there this is no flaw. If you want to know who is first in your life, determine who your life honors. If it is not the Lord Almighty, the King of glory, evict him and begin replacing him by worshipping in spirit and in truth the One who deserves all worship. Psalm 24 informs us if we begin to worship Him, He will come in and take His rightful place.
My life must be committed to putting and keeping God first. I must keep myself or anybody else out of His place of honor. My life must glorify the Lord and He only is to be glorified. When this is happening, there is a flow to my life. What once was a struggle becomes no struggle because my life is in order. There is a flow. Next week we will talk about the flow. Walking with the Lord can be yet more enjoyable.
