By: Elizabeth Haarberg
God and People
You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking this SoundCloud link.
Sometimes the priorities in my life get upside down or backwards.I find myself adhering to what the world says is important, not what God says. For example, being financially independent is good, but if it is a core value and that core value trumps other traits that are critical to living a Christian life, then I am not being true to what God is instructing.
So what is is important?
“And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'”
Matthew 22:37-39 English Standard Version
Loving God and the people around us is the basis of our core beliefs as Christians. Everything else comes out of this belief system. To love God we need to get to know God intimately.
“Taste and see that the Lord is good;”
Psalm 34:8 New International Version
The second commandment is about loving people well, so well that we would lay our life down for them.
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”
John 15:13 English Standard Version
God and people are first; jobs, material objects, school, and other things are second. It’s difficult to remember when we have bills to pay or activities for children, that those are all second in priority. We can worship God in the secondary aspects of life and continue to choose God in those moments, living out how to love others in the way God loves us.
Stop for a moment and check where your focus is. Pay attention to the areas of life that make you anxious then readjust your focus and attention. It’s an awareness of what we are focused on and if that is truly how we want to live our life.
Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado
