“He went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.” 2 Chronicles 15:2
It was Friday… or ‘date night’ as I like to call it. Every Friday night I take my wife out for dinner and a movie, or something just the 2 of us can enjoy together. It is a sacred time because it is important to keep the main thing the main thing. Next to Jesus, my wife is the main person in my life. Sitting at dinner, there came ‘a disturbance in the force!’
It was a simple request. Every 2 weeks the men in our church get together on a Saturday morning for breakfast. The text was from a returning winter resident who wanted to know ‘is there breakfast tomorrow?’ My normal procedure is to send out a group text as a reminder. I find attendance is better that way. I hadn’t sent this gentlemen a text because he wasn’t on my general list. So the question hung… ‘do I answer him now, or wait?’
The Bible verse today does NOT set isolated and alone. It is repeated through the Bible MANY times and in various ways. It is a basic principle of God that centers around the one little word ‘IF!’ The old cartoon chipmunks ‘Chip and Dale’ would begin to argue after one would say, ‘after you.’ The other would reply, “no no, I insist,” as the banter continued. It has been my hard-learned experience that God NEVER banters! And He DOES insist!
We all know God has a ‘Top 10’ list of demands. Requiring my love and having NO other Gods before Him is His #1! Christians should know that we CAN’T keep the commands of God on our own. They are there to show us our failure as humans…that we NEED God to save and live through us id we are even to attempt the basics. It is a RELATIONSHIP. Even today, that relationship requires that HE be placed at the top of MY personal list… in everything!
I can attest to the fact that God is patient. It took me years of hard learning and pain to finally get it. NOT because God was punishing me for putting Him second. But because there is a guarantee that if He is NOT first, MY life will CERTAINLY not go well. Not because He sets out to punish me, but because sin and death are already at my doorstep busting at the door. I NEED Him to be my First Responder!
I quickly and gladly answered the text because that was what MY number 1 expected of me. And because God is my number 2’s number 1, she completely understood. So what is YOUR Number One?
