HELP!!!! I PUT GOD FIRST ON MY PRIORITY LIST AND HE HAS TAKEN UP ALL THE SPACE.

Yeah, I know you may be wondering why that may be a problem.

 Well… Let me explain.

Sometime towards the end of last year, when the Holy Spirit was dealing greatly with me, panel beating my life to adjust to His own plan, I began thinking about the idea of having God as first on my priority list.

I thought “God cannot just be first on my priority list or on my everyday things-to-do list. I mean, if He’s first, what comes second. As in, what is close enough to God to come second on that list?”

And then I thought again “is there anywhere in the Bible that calls God the First in something, without saying He ends it too?”
So with my knowledge of the Word, I did a quick check –

He is First AND the Last – Revelation 22:13

Beginning AND the End – Revelation 22:13

Alpha AND Omega – Revelation 22:13

Author AND Finisher – Hebrews 12:2

Well, Hebrews 5:9 calls Him the Author of eternal salvation, without saying anything about Him being the finisher of it. But I mean the writer of Hebrews didn't waste much time before he referred to Him as “Finisher” of our faith in chapter 12. So yeah, nothing – nowhere.

“Hmmm…” I thought, “So it goes to show that if I put God first on my priority list, I cannot just leave Him as first, and then get on with other things. I kinda have to put Him as last too.” 
Well, it seemed to me like He’s all encompassing; ‘cos, if He’s First and He’s Last, whatever comes in between gets sandwiched by Him. Right? OK, I see.

Then again, that explanation didn't go so well with me. I knew I was hitting the nail somewhere, but I didn’t know where or how. So I kept thinking. I assumed that my things-to-do list or my priority list was a “scale” of preference list, with the heavily weighted items topping the list. I imagined that if I “weighed” GOD – (the Almighty, God of all the Universe, Commander of the Lord’s Army, the Rock, God over all kingdoms, King of all kings, Lord of all, Master of Heaven, Great and Marvelous, etc. you know what I mean) – on my scale of preference, it was going to read Error, dash-dash-dash, and then it’ll go beep beeeep beeeeeep.

 Haha!!!!!!

I began to realize that God cannot be weighed. He cannot be compared to anything – anything at all. I realized that if I put God on my priority list, He will leave no space for anything else. He doesn’t share. He either has me or does not have me at all. 

I read months later in John C. Maxwell’s Life@Work that if you put God first on your daily things-to-do list, you will not get around to anything else in the day. He’s gonna take up all the space, all the time, everything.

So rather than list God as first, I now choose to put Him in the center – Center of everything. 

Max Lucado, in his book, It’s Not About Me, mentioned that when God looks upon the earth, He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t see you. He sees Jesus. He went on to describe Jesus as the Center ‘C’ of life.

You know, I read that book a long while ago, and never really understood what He meant by Jesus being the Center ‘C’, until I started getting serious with my piano lessons. I realized that the Center C (or Middle C) on the piano keyboard is the master of all the keys. It doesn’t look any different from the other white keys, but it is not on the same level as the other keys. All the other 35 white keys and all the 25 black keys on my five-octave keyboard know it. The Center C, itself, knows it. They know that without it the music is too high or too low. They know that without it there can hardly be a balance in musical pieces. The Treble Clef revolves more than halfway around it; the Bass Clef revolves the other way around it. The Center C is the key of all keys and yes, it sure knows it.

 My piano tutor, when he was giving me lessons about the middle C, thought he was offering piano lessons; little did he know that he was opening my eyes to a spiritual truth that would stick with me forever.

Jesus is my Center ‘C’.

I don’t have to put Him as first on my priority list; and get done reading my Bible and praying in the morning, and then get on with my day – with numbers 2 and 3 and 4 and … and last. No, I don’t! I can carry Him along with me everywhere, in everything. Or better still, He can take me along with Him everywhere and in everything He wants me involved in. He can be in the center, with all things pointing to and from Him – He can be the Author TO Finisher of my faith; He can be All in All in my family; He can be Lord and Master over my relationships; He can be First TO Last in my career – He can and is and will be everything from everything to everything in my life. He isn’t just first on my list. He runs through from number 1 TO number last. 

So, away with the priority list! I’ll put other things on it, but my Jesus. He doesn’t belong there. He rules over everything in my life anyway. And He knows He does. He is my “Center ‘C’ Jesus”. I love to call Him that.

HEY LOOK, I THINK I’VE GOT A GREAT FIRE INSURANCE PLAN, OR DO I?

There’s something that just started bothering me lately. I’ve heard it all my life but it started becoming much of a bother after I had this really great encounter with the Holy Spirit. The encounter so changed my life that all I wanted to do was to love God, bask in His love and presence, please Him, and enjoy eternal life right here on earth.

So, when I hear people make statements like “please, don’t let me sin, I want to make heaven”; or “I will just forgive that girl because of God. I don’t want to go to hell because of any stupid person”. Haha… that’s funny. If you’re forgiving her because you don’t want to go to hell, don’t you think calling her stupid may get you right down there?
People have gotten the message of Christ completely twisted. Jesus preached bringing the Kingdom of Heaven down on earth, and His sole aim of coming was to reconcile us back to God; not after we get to heaven, but right from here on earth. That’s why Jesus came. While reconciliation with God will save us from eternal damnation in hell, avoiding hell was not the main message of Jesus’ gospel.

God desires a love relationship with you. He loves you sooooo much and He wants you to let Him love you. He wants you to yield to Him, allowing Him to work in and through you. He wants you to do greater works than Jesus did here on earth. He wants to talk with you, reveal things to you through His word and through His Holy Spirit living inside of you. He has not given you a spirit of fear – not even of hell fire, but He has given you a spirit of love, of power and of a sound mind. If all your salvation means to you is a way of escape from hell, then you cannot give God pleasure, meaning you cannot fulfill your purpose for being created, according to Revelation 4:11. And if you can’t give God pleasure, it means you don’t have faith in Him (Hebrews 11:6). So really, you’ll find out that being afraid of hell and doing “all YOU can” to avoid hell may just be what will get you in there. From my Bible, I learn that the finished work of salvation requires that you believe that God has indeed saved you from your sin, and you allow Him to work in and through you while here on earth. It requires absolute faith and trust in Him (in His work through Jesus’ sacrifice).

I’ve been reading a lot about old time reformers – John Wycliffe, John Hus, Martin Luther, etc., and while I read about these great men, all that keeps running through my mind is “what would have made this men leave everything they knew and had, and oppose such a formidable force in their times solely for the sake of Christ?”

I mean if salvation is such a great fire insurance plan as some deem it to be, it should have kept John Hus from being burned on earth because He proclaimed Christ, and should have kept John Wycliffe’s bones from being exhumed and burned long after he was dead. If it is such a great fire insurance plan, it should be able to keep some of your works from being burned, according to 1st Corinthians 3:15.

In church this Sunday, the prayer leader asked us to pray this way: “Father, give me the grace to run this race; I don’t want to go to hell fire.” While this is not entirely a bad prayer, I consider it a very shallow request. There are other reasons the Bible gives for running this Christian race well, none of which states running away from hell as a reason.
Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us to set aside every weight that easily besets us and RUN with patience the race that is set before us LOOKING UNTO JESUS the author and finisher of our faith. 1st Corinthians 9:24-25 says we should run TO obtain an incorruptible crown.

So a more appropriate request may sound something like this: “Father, give me the grace to run this race to the end that I may spend eternity with you.” OR “Father, give me the grace to run this race and never take my eyes off you while I run” OR “Father, give me the grace to run this race and enjoy a great relationship with you while I’m still here on earth” OR “Father, give me the grace to run this race, and take as many people as I can along with me, until we get to the finish line”.
Yes, your salvation will keep you from eternal damnation in hell fire. But…

SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT God wants a love relationship with you. He wants you to enjoy eternal life right from here. The “life abundantly” that Jesus talked about in John 10:10 starts NOW.
So rather than fear hell, embrace eternal life which Christ gave to you. Let His Spirit live and work in and through you, so that you will always do His will. Find out where He is working, submit to Him, do what He asks you to do, and join Him in His work. Trust me, you’ll be on a great enjoyable journey to heaven, even hell will know that it has lost you completely and forever to God.

Focus on Jesus. Look unto Him. He is the Author AND Finisher of your faith. He has completed it for you. Just find rest in Him and live. Really LIVE!!!