Seek First HIM

 The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. (Deuteronomy 6:5-7)

The Lord alone... Is he the only one you serve? A tough question this morning, but one which I think we all need to consider. Is he really first and foremost in our lives? If we might know how to answer that one, then we must consider the next portion of our passage. Do we love him with ALL our heart, or is our heart divided? Do we commit all our mind, will, and emotions to him, are we carried away by all manner of folly? Is our commitment to his commandments (rules for living) 'whole-hearted'? If we are able to answer these questions with a resounding 'yes', then we are likely putting Christ first in our lives. If not, we need not despair, because God is giving ALL of us a chance to give him that place of authority in our lives. 

Commit yourselves wholeheartedly... We might struggle from time to time with our focus, but God knows the intention and 'bent' of our heart, will, and emotions. He knows we face temptation after temptation, and he also knows we don't always resist them. What he is looking for is not 'perfection', but commitment to his standards of living. Are we choosing to do more than just 'consider' them? Have we made them the standard by which we measure our thoughts and actions? Why does God ask us to repeat his commandments (standards for living) over and over again? He knows we will need the reminders about right choices, keeping the right leadership in our lives, and maintaining a right mindset to overcome those temptations!

The principle is to 'seek first' God - then all will be added into our lives. We don't always know why these standards are so important in our lives, but if we trust him to always be good toward us, then we know whatever he asks of us by laying out these standards for living has to be good. The thing he asks of us is to continually refresh our minds with these standards - so our hearts will constantly be directed toward right steps. Most of the bad decisions we make in life are because we didn't seek him first in those actions. Just sayin!