For my non-Christian friends, this might sound a bit extreme. I have always had God in my life, but putting him first was not so easy to do. I never considered it. My children came first, then my sister and then other friends and family and lastly God. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that nor did I give it much thought. God knew I loved him but my earthly family was tangible and therefore their needs took preference and my attention was theirs before God’s.
After becoming a Christian on June 22, 2015, my life did a 180. My priorities changed and my outlook expanded. It takes time, faith and a simple understanding of God to be comfortable with the directive of putting Him first in your life. When you turn your life over to Christ, you are entrusting Him to take care of you, to work through you for your good and to change you from the inside out. He wants to mold you into in His image so that your light can shine brightly for others to see.
You give up control of your life. That is not to say that you ask Him to make every decision for you. We still have free will. Even if we feel He wants us to go in a certain direction, we have the power and ability to not listen and go in the direction we choose. However, when we do so, He is out of the picture and therefore the results or consequences of our actions are on us. We own them and have to live with them. Kind of like the expression, “You made your bed, now you have to lie in it.”
I have known people who resist Christianity because they feel it means following someone else’s rules and giving up their ability to make decisions. Yes, it means following rules, like the Ten Commandments and being kind to others, being honest, helping those less fortunate than you. How hard are those? As for choices, you can make your own choices all day long. You can choose to either listen to God or not. If you choose to go your own way, He will not interfere, but then when you get into trouble, it may take Him a while to respond. It’s like a child not obeying his parents and then getting hurt. They have no one to blame but themselves.
That is not to say there are no consequences when you listen to God. But He uses your consequences to make you stronger, more resilient and a better version of yourself. Who doesn’t want that? Let me just say this, God’s plans for you are 1000% better than yours. You couldn’t even imagine them yourself because your mind is limited. His is not.
Think of God before you do anything significant, before you make a big decision, before you go down a path you are unsure of. Make your relationship with Him more important than any other relationship in your life. People will always let you down, even those closest to you, for the simple fact that they are human! We are all flawed. We all mess up and hurt people we didn’t mean to hurt. Your best friends will always be there for you, until they can’t be. God is 100% reliable. All you have to do is ask Him into your heart and your life. He wants nothing more than a relationship with you, for you to listen to Him, obey Him, talk to Him, pray to Him. Put Him first and see what happens. God bless.