Cross Reference Posted June 22, 2014 Group: Removed from Forums for Breaking Terms of Service Followers: 0 Topic Count: 6 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 192 Content Per Day: 0.05 Reputation: 32 Days Won: 1 Joined: 06/12/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted June 22, 2014 Putting God first is only to make Him #1 on a list of other gods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macs Son Posted June 23, 2014 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 8 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 261 Content Per Day: 0.07 Reputation: 79 Days Won: 1 Joined: 06/07/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted June 23, 2014 (edited) Putting The Lord before everyone and everything else.This is one thing I' m not even sure I understand, let alone think I'm capable of doing. I want to, I know that is how it is supposed to be but I've never figured out what that would look like.Right now, and probably for the past 14 years, I would have to say my children are number one for me.We attend church every week, are quite involved and connected there. We talk of God during the week, our Sunday school lessons often become the basis for further discussion.Recently, our pastor spoke about this topic, and invited anyone for further discussion to join him afterward, I did, and he said I seemed like I was doing all the right things. Is it just Christian guilt? That I'll never be good enough (which is true, we don't save ourselves). Is it a mother's guilt? That I'm not doing enough to teach them about God. Is it my own anxiety? Perhaps I am doing fine, but how would I know? As I said to my pastor, I am not about to pull an Abraham to prove how much I love Him. (And we've all heard stories of unfortunate people who have).Combine my own questioning with a few people in my life who have recently thrown this phrase around like my 6 year old trying to hit the laundry basket with a dirty sock, and I am really wondering what it looks like in this crazy life we live. I can't think of a single family in the same stage of life I am in who can say God is number one. I see it in our seniors at church but out in the race the rest of us run...not so much.So tell me, what do I do, how would I feel, how do I know that I am putting God above all else?Yikes! Should have named myself RamblingDee!Thanks for any advice you've got...DHi Dee,You speak of your kids being number #1 for you. I don't know if you have a husband as well but let's assume you do. I'll also assume you fell in love and promised yourself that from here on your life had meaning through that identity of the father of your children. Then you came to love your children - this you explicitly mention. This love of motherhood is a wonderful thing. It was in my mother, who also gave herself selflessly for all my four brothers, as well as my dad and the rest of her family, that she became the matriarch of the extended family. This was not because she was voted in as being more mature but because of her great love and impact upon the lives of our rather large family - she had 9 brothers and sisters herself. Now I love my children dearly as well and I love my wife dearly as well. I also love my church, my friends; it goes on, and in priority order of who gets my time. It is easier to say I would lay down my life for my family out of love than others but because Jesus laid down His life for me I'd like to think I'd even lay it down for a perfect stranger in order to live my life in the love of the Lord rather than to cower in a corner if someone's life is in danger. I think the point here is that you already understand the principle of love. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; it does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, it thinks no evil; it does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.Now we may not exactly be there yet on being true to love but from what you said you are on the way for love always places the benefit of others by the light of what we sacrifice of ourselves.However, the thing you may not see if that behind all those we love is God for “Love” is something we can all understand and relate to. We can sense Godly love in our hearts; for God is not far from anyone of us. St Paul also taught this in Acts 17:23-28, as he spoke at a gathering of Philosophers at Athens who had gathered together to hear his dissertation on the one they only knew as the “unknown God”:Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives life to all of us, including breath, and all things. And He (God) has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being.Have you stopped and considered how love emanates from us by Him in whom we live and move and have our being?God is behind all the splendor. We recognize Him in His handiwork throughout the universe and we recognize Him working in the people we meet. His desire is that we all come to repentance and know Him eternally. If the love in this life is most precious then what will the love of God be like in the everlasting love and life of Christ that we are called to? For:1Co 2:9 But as it is written:“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,Nor have entered into the heart of manThe things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”I may fall into the category of one of those older people you spoke of, :-) although we still have 1 out of 5 children still at home that just completed his freshman year at college. However, long before the other 4 girls went off to college and met their husbands and began to have children and became loving mothers themselves, we began to recognize how God is the love beyond love - the source of love in all of us. We have gone from the young star gazers in love with the beauty of the universal display of stars and planets and recognized the beauty of the God who made it in the first place. It is then our primary love became God Himself. It is in the growth of Christ in us that we are able to see past the visible into the invisible God behind all that is visible. No one has seen Love, no one has seen Honor, but these invisible attributes exist and drive the world. They lend strength, when there is none, give us courage where our hearts fails us, and en-noble us to be better than we are and to put away our selfish desires in order to truly love. Take comfort in that Christ is growing in you and the blessings He has bestowed already on your young family. But know that you only see imperfectly as in a mirror and when Christ completes His work in you and takes you home you shall know filly even as you are fully known and perfected in His love. Know that in this life you have been born into Christ and even in embryonic form He is forging your heart after His own and giving you spiritual eyes to see so much more than you already do, just as He is doing with this man who has 6 grandchildren to go along with our 4 girls and a boy - the picture is about 5 years outdated. Enjoy your blessing and grow in ChristGalatians 4:19 My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in youMay God Bless you and your family, Pat Edited June 23, 2014 by Macs Son Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneLight Posted June 23, 2014 Group: Royal Member Followers: 22 Topic Count: 1,294 Topics Per Day: 0.21 Content Count: 31,762 Content Per Day: 5.24 Reputation: 9,760 Days Won: 115 Joined: 09/14/2007 Status: Offline Share Posted June 23, 2014 Putting God first is only to make Him #1 on a list of other gods.Please explain what you mean by this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cross Reference Posted June 23, 2014 Group: Removed from Forums for Breaking Terms of Service Followers: 0 Topic Count: 6 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 192 Content Per Day: 0.05 Reputation: 32 Days Won: 1 Joined: 06/12/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted June 23, 2014 (edited) Putting God first is only to make Him #1 on a list of other gods. Please explain what you mean by this? Consider that whatever we focus on in life is what we truly worship. What is the first of the ten commandments? What did Jesus say about putting our hand to the plough? Lu. 9:62 Did not Jesus say: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Matthew 6:33 (KJV) Why don't we do we do that __ except we have other gods in our life and use excuses and Bible verses to keep them intact? We want Jesus but we love our lives.. And then we have this by Jesus: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26 (KJV) Is that not why God leads off the ten commandments with that first one about us having no other but, Him? Edited June 23, 2014 by Cross Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cross Reference Posted June 23, 2014 Group: Removed from Forums for Breaking Terms of Service Followers: 0 Topic Count: 6 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 192 Content Per Day: 0.05 Reputation: 32 Days Won: 1 Joined: 06/12/2014 Status: Offline Share Posted June 23, 2014 (edited) All love without God has a hook in it. Loving God as He desires [prescribes] we do, takes that hook out to where we love others as He loves us. Edited June 23, 2014 by Cross Reference Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnlove Posted June 28, 2014 Group: Removed from Forums for Breaking Terms of Service Followers: 0 Topic Count: 1 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 127 Content Per Day: 0.04 Reputation: 6 Days Won: 0 Joined: 06/19/2014 Status: Offline Birthday: 08/19/1934 Share Posted June 28, 2014 Putting The Lord before everyone and everything else. This is one thing I' m not even sure I understand, let alone think I'm capable of doing. I want to, I know that is how it is supposed to be but I've never figured out what that would look like. Right now, and probably for the past 14 years, I would have to say my children are number one for me. We attend church every week, are quite involved and connected there. We talk of God during the week, our Sunday school lessons often become the basis for further discussion. Recently, our pastor spoke about this topic, and invited anyone for further discussion to join him afterward, I did, and he said I seemed like I was doing all the right things. Is it just Christian guilt? That I'll never be good enough (which is true, we don't save ourselves). Is it a mother's guilt? That I'm not doing enough to teach them about God. Is it my own anxiety? Perhaps I am doing fine, but how would I know? As I said to my pastor, I am not about to pull an Abraham to prove how much I love Him. (And we've all heard stories of unfortunate people who have). Combine my own questioning with a few people in my life who have recently thrown this phrase around like my 6 year old trying to hit the laundry basket with a dirty sock, and I am really wondering what it looks like in this crazy life we live. I can't think of a single family in the same stage of life I am in who can say God is number one. I see it in our seniors at church but out in the race the rest of us run...not so much. So tell me, what do I do, how would I feel, how do I know that I am putting God above all else? Yikes! Should have named myself RamblingDee! Thanks for any advice you've got... D Jesus once told me to give him the first few moments of every situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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