Put God First

 

As we move closer to our Utopia, our New Jerusalem that is written in the book of the Revelation in the Bible, it is important that we continue to tread on the path that will lead us there the quickest. That is the straight and narrow path. Not too many people really are accustomed to this path because it requires you to do the right thing at all times and to give up pleasures of the flesh and worldly things so you can get closer to God. That is the prerequisite, and people are addicted to their flesh so they allow temptation to take over their minds and hearts and they give in and do what "everyone else is doing" only to have to deal with the consequences later and suffer more than they have to. The main ingredient to begin walking on the straight and narrow path is to put God first! There is a special method to this and it is important that you listen carefully so you will know what to do to get yourself to this awakening in your life. We all know that one of the 10 commandments is to not have any other GodS before you and that means don't allow anything in your life to come before your relationship with God. If you do, then you miss out on God's blessings, you miss out on miracles, you miss out on the most important connection and relationship you will ever have. 

Your mother's are usually the ones you go to for help with a problem. If something is going wrong in your relationship you call your mom and discuss it with her and hope to get a wise answer or solution to your issue, or at least a listening ear so you can feel better about venting and letting out your emotions. If you run out of money and need a loan, you call your mom. If you are stranded somewhere and don't have roadside assistance, you call your mom. If you are sick and need some attention and TLC, who do you call? Your mom. Mom's are usually always there to listen so we turn to them regularly. But your mother does not know everything like God does. And if we were wise we would turn to our God before our Mother's and then you wouldn't have to turn to your mother so much, who does not have all the answers. God is the only one with all of the answers. God created our bodies, our brains, our hearts, and knows everything about us. Our mothers do not know everything about us. So let's give our moms a break and turn to the ultimate mother. Mother/Father God. 

We hide a lot from our moms but we can't hide anything from our God, so doesn't it make more sense to go to God first with your problems? I say it does. You may not see God right there with you, you may not be able to pick up the phone and call or text God and chat that way, and you may not be able to write God a letter and wait for a response but that's because God is God.  Your connection to God is not like your connection to mankind and that is what makes it different and so important. That is what makes God, God. God created us and designed every organ in our bodies, our mothers conceived us and carried us and nurtured us for 9-10 months so really, God is our creator and moms are our hosts for development, the earthly house we live in before we are born. First form heaven and then to the body of one lucky and blessed woman. No offense to the Dad's, I know you are very special to God and to your children but we all know children run to the moms first so that is why I made the moms stand out. They are more nurturing by nature so please do not take offense to me blasting moms and ignoring dads,  you are equally important to the development and nurturing of your children.

Anyway, God can answer prayers, mother's cannnot. God can heal your body and brain and heart, mothers cannot. God can see what you are going through behind closed doors, mothers cannot. God can hear your cries and step in when you call for help, mothers cannot. God knows the inner workings of your heart strings and can get to the heart of the matter, mother's cannot. God can read your mind and know what you want to say that you are not saying, mothers cannot. God can ease your angst and give you instant peace without saying a word, mothers cannot. God can make sure your rent gets paid next month without checking to see if he has enough in his account for his rent, mothers cannot. God can send an angel to watch over you when you are lost and walking down a dark road and make sure you are safe until you get home, mothers cannot. God can take the pain of losing a loved one away and heal your broken heart in the blink of an eye, mothers cannot. God can show you great wonders and secrets of the universe and supernatural things you didn't know about, mothers cannot. God can make sure you have the divine connections you need to get your business off the ground and running or get your career started in the right direction so you can be successful, mothers cannot. Bottom line, mothers nor fathers cannot do what God can do so it makes sense to go to God first. 

Now let's talk about how we put God first besides what I already mentioned above. When you wake up in the morning what is the first thing you do? Some people brush their teeth, some turn on the news, some grab their cell phones and see what they missed while they were asleep (what? that's silly), some people roll over and kiss their mates lying in bed next to them, some people get up and walk their dog, some walk to the kitchen and make breakfast, some read the paper, and some have to have their cup of joe first thing in the morning. This is fine and dandy and it can get you through your day but is that enough for you? Getting through your day? What if when  you woke up in the morning you said "Good morning God, thank you for waking me up this morning" That's putting God first. What if when you woke up in the morning and you sat up and before you grabbed your cell phone, you said "thank you God for making sure I have a phone to use". That's putting God first. What if when you woke up in the morning before you rolled over to kiss your mate you said "thank you God for this beautiful woman or handsome man that I love so much and is here with me safe and sound and loves me back". That's putting God first. What if when you woke up in the morning instead of getting dressed to walk your dog you just stared at him or her and said "thank you God for giving me this loving pet that I adore and loves me to pieces as if you were righ there with me" (dog backwards is God by the way). That's putting God first. It's not hard is it. All you have to do is learn to be grateful for what you have every day of your life and it will come naturally to wake up and thank God first before you do anything else. This is better than just "getting through your day" because it ensures you "enjoy your day". Let's take it a step further. 

Putting God first involves much more than the minor things I mentioned above. Some Christians get up and start praying before they even go eat breakfast. Some Christians turn on Christian music or worship music and start worshipping or singing to God before they do anything else. Some Christians get up and start having a conversation with God about anything and everything, and this is like prayer but you don't have to say "dear God" it will be like a normal conversation as if God was right there sitting next to you. Like your ultimate buddy Jesus. Some Christians grab their Bibles and read a verse or two or a whole chapter so they can prepare themselves for their day ahead. Some Christians prepare to consecrate themselves before they do anything else that day and they fast, which means not eating all day or more than one day as a sacrifice to connect with God on a deeper level. You can be certain you will hear from God when you give up food for a certain period of time because you are depriving yourself of nourishment and God honors that because it is a sacrifice. So once you get in the habit of putting God first in a minor way, then you can practice going a bit deeper with your sacrifice and giving the first part of your morning to God. Something I always do when I get in my car no matter where I am driving, even if it's just to the grocery store down the street, is turn on Christian music. I like the Fish (95.9) or KLOVE (107.5 or 100.3 FM), and there are others but this is my time with God in my car. I want God to know that I honor him and thank him for blessing me with a car by making sure I sing Christian and clean songs to get me pumped up in my car before I listen to KIIS FM and get pumped up with secular pop 40 music. I listen to both and other secular music but I have my car because of God and that means I have to honor God when I get in it and praise him no matter where I am driving. After a little while listening to this music I can let it go and turn on something else I might like that is secular. That's putting God first and it's balanced and that is a healthy way of serving God and a great example of putting God first. We also have to remember what goes on in our lives. 

Let's talk about married couples or couples that are in a committed relationship. When a couple decides to put God in the center of their marriage they will be blessed. That marriage has God attached to it and that means that couple is more likely to get along with each other, respect each other, love unconditionally, have fun in their marriage, keep the fire burning, and give each other the space they need to break away for a while and then come back stronger with more love in their hearts. What does this look like? Well, basically, you begin by asking God for your perfect mate before you get involved with anyone. That doesn't mean "God give me a perfect person". There are no perfect people. It means "God please bless me with the man or woman that is perfect for me". That's all you have to say but the trick is you have to wait for that and so many people do not want to do that because of sexual sin in the world. It's an epidemic and God doesn't like it because sex was designed for marriage not for fornication or dating relationships or boyfriends and girlfriends. I want to honor what God created for marriage by waiting for marriage to do it and I know it will be much more pleasurable and beautiful than if I don't wait. It is what it is. This is another way you can put God first. 

So before you even meet your mate say this prayer so you can put God first and wait for him or her to arrive, and for the important things in your life and his or her life to be aligned and ready for you so you will both be equally yoked. It doesn't make sense for anyone to commit fornication with random people in the world and then they meet up with someone who isn't doing that and that person is waiting for marriage and they think they will be married. It doesn't work that way. If you want your mate to wait then you have to wait too. If someone is waiting and you want to marry that person then you have to wait too. That is what I mean when I say equally yoked. It's not fair to sin and then expect to marry someone who is not sinning and waiting for marriage. You have to use common sense and see the bigger picture, and that means if you are fornicating you need to realize that will not bring you the person God intends for you to be with. You have to sacrifice sexual pleasure with different people you are not meant to be with to get what you truly want. Once you have made the decision to wait for sex until marriage and you are strong enough to say no, then you need to wait and that means no matter how long you have to wait you have to be strong enough with the willpower to resist temptation. 

I said this before and I will say it again. You need to make sure you don't allow any male or female in your home or in your car where you both can be tempted. Stay in the public eye and meet up with groups if you need to and vow to respect each others bodies and commit to wait for what you both want with each other, not someone else. Don't go too far with affection because you may end up doing more and breaking your commitment to waiting. It's not that hard, you just have to use wisdom and keep yourself busy because true love is very powerful and it is normal to want to be affectionate with the one you are madly in love with but you can wait and it won't kill you if you do. It also doesn't make sense to feel something that strong for someone and then call on another person and use their body to pour out your emotions into them because you are afraid or don't know how to express what you feel for the other person. That means you are using someone to deal with your emotions and we are not put on this earth to be used. Even if someone says yes, don't use them because it will hurt you and that person in the end and you may never get your true love because you didn't wait and you refused to let go of your fears to move towards them. Your heart will be broken and that brokenness may never subside. 

Once you have met up with the one you are meant to be with allow the ebb and flow of love to come. Don't force it and don't make demands on the other person because if you do you could lose the very person you were meant to be with. Let them be and let them live and give them time to ebb and flow towards you so you both can be comfortable with the timing. Then get to know each other as much as possible, that means play games and have fun so you can see a side of them that does not require taking your clothes off. I bet once you embark on your honeymoon you will feel so much better that you waited and you found your best friend and you honored God with your bodies, and you will see that your marriage will be so much sweeter and more blessed than if you had not put God first. When you start out this way before you get married then it will be easy for you to make sure God is in the center of your marriage. That means you both make decisions together and you both go to God and pray together about whatever problems or challenges arise. This will prevent cheating and prevent you from talking to a stranger or a co-worker or another friend about your marital issues. If you do that you could lose your partner and your marriage could suffer greatly. Go to God even if you do it alone so you know God is the one giving you the advice and making things smoother for both of you so you can overcome any obstacle in your marriage. Cheating will not smooth things out it will make things worse for both of you. Also, this is for those of you that happen to fall in love with someone and are too afraid to tell them even if they have expressed what they feel for you. If you hold that inside and you refuse to share it with that person or you ignore what you feel for whatever reason the best thing you can do is ask God to help you talk to them. That is what God is for. If you want to really be with that person and you feel worthy of them and you are taking care of yourself and your heart and your body and serving God then get on  your knees and ask God to help you communicate what you need to communicate to them. Otherwise you may never say what you want to say and  you may watch the one you love end up with someone else. That's painful. 

 Other ways you can put God first is to pray before you eat, ask God for guidance before you make any decision if you need to, ask God to help you use wisdom in making decisions period, ask God to guide your heart in the right direction career-wise, ask God to choose your mate, ask God to help you choose the right place to live, ask God to help you choose what college to go to, ask God to help you lose weight or eat healthier, ask God to guide you to the right church, ask God to help you choose your friends wisely, ask God to help you understand and interpret the scriptures in the Bible that you do not understand, especially the book of the Revelation because there are a lot of secrets in this book, ask God to help you smooth out the rough edges or make amends with someone that you hurt or help you apologize to someone that you offended, ask God to help you think better and always do the right thing, ask God to help you accept the right job offer, ask God to keep you safe and bless your path and your travel at all times (build a wall of fire around you to protect yourself from all harm and danger, that's what I do every day), or ask God to give you a good home and bless your children to stay safe and away from the temptations in the schools or in the neighborhood and away from negative influences (my mom did this and my sisters and I grew up peaceful and did not get addicted to negative things nor involved with the wrong crowds). So now that you have learned what it means to put God first in everything you do and before everything you do, here are some steps to get you started doing this:

1. Take an account of the current temptations that possess you: drugs, sex, pornography, voyeurism, laziness, junk food, black magic, alcohol, or any other addiction that you can't seem to shake. Write them down so you can look then square in the eye and fight back to resist them.

2. Write down the experience of this tempting pull that possesses you: realize the negative effects that these temptations have on your  body, your mind, your heart, your spirit, your family or relationships and your life in general and see that they are breaking you down and not building you up. Realize that you are losing and not winning when you give in to temptations.

3. Understand the eternal consequences of your actions: temptations are devilish and that means satan and the devil and demons are always involved and you have to be a fool to want to continue to cater to satan. He is evil and his only goal is to see you fail and suffer miserably while he laughs at you for listening to him and ignoring God pulling on your heart strings.  Remember Satan tempted Jesus on several occasions and Jesus always said no so Jesus beat Satan. So when temptation arises, beat satan and say no. It's mind over matter and you do have the strength to ignore it and if you think you don't, then use your mouth and ask for the strength. You could end up burning in hell for eternity messing around with satanic things, and not only that you will cause hellish events and demonic activity in your surroundings and that means you put yourself in danger. This means  you may start losing your mind, having blackouts, not remembering where you were or what happened to you, you may go insane and act crazy, defy normal living and become a wandering nomad or shut yourself up and never interact with the world anymore. You could get severely ill, cause people to come against you and hurt you, you could mistaken a strange voice and think it may be an angel or God speaking to you and really it's the devil or satan speaking to you or a demon in your head. That is why it is important to put God first so you can learn to discern spirits. Demons walk the earth looking like you and I and most people don't even know they are communicating with a demon but if you get close to God you can ask for the gift of discerning of spirits and keep yourself safe from getting involved or too close to a demon. Or you could end up dead.

4. Get on your knees and make amends with God and apologize to your God first and then repent and ask for help: When you do this and you are serious about it, something magical and supernatural happens to your spirit and God finally can step in on your behalf because you are trusting God to fight your battles and trusting God to step in when you need him and also trusting that God will be there for you whenever you need Him. That's powerful and if you don't do this you will fall by the wayside and continue to be in danger. Apologies are powerful and that means you feel better and God feels better and anyone you apologize to feels better about you. It's that simple as long as it is sincere.

5. Clean up your life and remove all evil from your heart, which includes jealousy, resentment, anger and fear: If you hold on to these things and allow them to consume you then you will never be able to reach that place of power with God and rectify the madness nor clean up the mess you are living in, in your life. Forgive people who have offended you even if it doesn't feel right at first. The very act of forgiveness will set you free because you are poisoning yourself when you hold on to unforgiveness and that means you get sick while the person you are hating on is living their lives probably not even thinking about you. So let it go and you will feel better and be better equipped to handle anything that comes your way in the future that requires forgiveness again. Not only that, others will be able to forgive you easier when you forgive them. God knows the heart and God sees the heart of mankind more than anyone else so when you let the above things go, you are allowing God to come in and clean up your heart and move you closer to your destiny with and in Him, and allow Him to come into your life and heart and elevate you and promote you to the person He intends you to be. That's taking hold of your destiny that belongs to no one else but you.

6. Prepare your life for your new path: Once you have cleaned up the messes in your life it is now time to create a plan for each day of your life. You can't fly by the seat of your pants if you want God to come in to your life and change you. You have to be disciplined and organized and live a structured but balanced life. That means getting up at the same time every morning or close to it and having a plan for the day. Buy a planner and plan your week ahead on Sunday night and stick to that plan as best as you can. Let go of negative influences like shady people who do not have your best interests at heart, and sometimes this can be family members that are no good for you. If you have to let someone go that is not aligned with your clean life plan then do it and do it quickly before they try to get in your head and mess up your heart again. You will know the wrong people by their response to your new lease on life. If they want to pull you back into the arms of danger and temptations that do not serve you then you know they are not your friend. Pay attention and keep your eyes peeled. Good people only want what is good for you and they will not get in your way or interfere with your life goals so you can stay down with them. Walk away from them and find a new group of friends that have only your best interests at heart.

7. Exercise your newfound connection with God: This means when you wake up make sure you acknowledge God before you do anything first. Get a Bible or Bible app and read it every day and if you read something you don't understand ask for understanding and wait for the answer (God takes his time answering us sometimes to see if we will be patient and wait for the answer). We lack in the asking department and that is why we do not have what we truly want, because we don't ask for it with wisdom and we want what we want instead of what God wants for us. God knows better. Go serve in the world by volunteering, investing or donating money for a good cause, paying your tithes, joining a Christian group, feeding the homeless periodically or on Thanksgiving day, starting something amazing in your own community or just helping an elderly neighbor carry her groceries to her door. Make sure you are good and kind and loving to your family members and anyone you encounter because you could be entertaining an angel. Even if you are not, be wise in how you deal with people because your reputation is always something you need to keep clean. Your reputation is all you have so don't taint it because you are jealous or hateful or angry about something you did or about something that someone did to you. Let it go and build a solid and golden reputation representing God the best way you can. Start somewhere with giving back and serving your world or serving God and keep it consistent so you stay true to God and the new you. I mean we are here to serve each other any way and that means being jealous of one another or attempting to harm or steal from someone should not be in your heart at all. Squash that mess and do the right thing all the time towards everyone, even if you don't like them. Karma is very real and you what you put out or what you do to others will surely come back to you one day so it's not worth it to harm anyone because you will get the same treatment.

Overall, if you truly want to be happy in life and have joy every day no matter what is going on in your life you cannot be lazy about putting God first or doing the right thing. If you refuse to get up and make a move or make a difference in your life then you will remain stuck and miserable and a lowly and sad person. If you want more than that then get over the laziness because God cannot use a lazy person to do great things in the world. You have to work hard in everything you do so you can reap the fruits of your labor and make sure you receive the blessings of God and have the room to put them somewhere. Don't forget to go to church on Sundays because this is considered the first day of the week. What a great way to begin to put God first by fellowshipping with your fellow Christians in the very house of God, first. And if you can't get to a church turn on TBN or YouTube and find a pastor like Victoria and Joel Osteen or TD Jakes or Paula White or some other pastor and get your Jesus Juice at home. Get up and just do it! Put God first and all these things shall be added unto you!

Bible verses to remember: Revelation 21:4, 1 Peter 1:25, Matthew 6:33 - this is truth!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxY_eJLBflk - Denzel Washington's motivational video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB18p5JiFfY - Start With God - immerse yourself in this 1 hour video to get encourage you to put God first!