Matthew 6:33  But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things shall be added unto you.

Matthew  22:37 -38  And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all of your heart, and with all thy soul, and all the mind. v:38 This is the first and great commandment.

It is a true statement that Jesus talked about priorities as much as he did hell, heaven, or our use of money. I struggle with lining out my priorities as much as anyone and often I am weighed down by my responsibilities and I too forget that when God looks at my life, He is searching my heart to see if I am keeping my priorities in line. The Bible has much to say about priorities. As a minister of the gospel I see a great deal of conflict in this area, not only in my own life but I also see the war torn lives that are a direct result of ignoring God’s exhortations to keep our priorities in line.

The Word of God should be among our highest priorities because it is only in the scriptures that we can come to know God. We do not seek to read the scriptures because we want to be ‘know it all’s’ among our Christian brothers and sisters, but because we want to know God and begin to emulate our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the highest and most noble of all the pursuits. To know God and to fellowship with Him is the very purpose of life and to ignore this endeavor is like failing to breathe. God is life and He is the giver of all our breaths from the first to the last and each one in between is taken by His divine permission. The scripture teaches that we do nothing without God’s intervention and that in Him alone we live and breathe and have our being.  (Acts 17:28)  When we seek God with all of our hearts making Him the highest priority of our lives, then He brings order to the other areas of our lives.

Next to our personnel pursuit of a love relationship with God, our next order of business is to love and show God to our families. I am recently re-married to the woman I was with when I got  my prison sentence twelve years ago. Because I have seen God restore my life I labor diligently to see other lives restored and set free. Sometimes, and even as a minister I can get off base. I forget that I have a spiritual responsibility to my family and when I neglect my family, and more specifically my marriage, it is like I am neglecting God Himself. I want each of you to know that it is out of love for God and His people that I write these devotions in the hope that you will be inspired by our similar struggles and the hope we also share, but from time to time I have to unplug from my duties as a minister and concentrate on my own relationship with the Almighty, and renew my commitment to my wife. If I fail to show my family Jesus then everything I do and the message of my life has been in vain. If you log on and I have not written anything for that day, please feel free to reread past devotions and while you do, please pray for me as I will for you, that each of us can keep our priorities right before God. Remember it is out of love for God that any ministry exist, but we also are just humans trying to keep our priorities in line so you are not alone in your endeavors to do the same.  May God bless you all as you labor to keep first things FIRST!  Love in Christ  Brother Jim

Quote of the day:  But our only priority must be to present Jesus Christ crucified-to lift Him up continually, all the time!  Oswald Chambers