God First

Our theme this year is “God First.” When Moses went up on the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments, God also gave him the greatest commandment. That is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5 ESV). God reminded the Israelites to follow the commandments, “that it may go well with you.”

The biggest part of loving God and following his commandments is to bind them on the heart (vs. 6). Learning the commandments so they can be lived out was not just a head exercise, but was one of the heart too. And the Israelites “shall teach them (the commandments) to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (vs. 7).

God was essentially saying that he was to be on the hearts and minds of people constantly. This is far removed from how we connect with God today. Many Christians have been Christians for decades and have never read the Bible from cover-to-cover. The Israelites, on the other hand, recited them every day, seven days a week. God commanded them to impress them upon their kids and to talk about them all the time. This new year will be a year of shifting our priorities and putting God first in all that we do.