Always Give The Lord First Place

July/August 2024 – Grace & Truth Magazine

Always Give The Lord The First Place

We need to put and keep the Lord first in our lives, above all else. The Father has already established this, for we read in Colossians 1: “The Father … has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preemience” (vv.12-18 NKJV ).

Our failure to give Him first place brings sorrow to ourselves, whether we trust the Lord or not. Consider the rich man in Luke 16, who had given the first place to himself. His life here was good, but he “died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades … he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me’” (vv.22-24). The sorrow of this man is everlasting!

Many individuals, even otherwise faithful ones, have brought grief upon themselves by failing to keep God and His desires in the first place. Adam and Eve’s failure has affected everyone (Gen. 3; Rom. 5:12). Noah stumbled in his behavior in Genesis 9, and his son Ham’s telling others about it rather than covering it brought a curse on Ham’s son Canaan, affecting his descendants (vv.18-27, consider Prov. 10:12). We could go on through the Bible, listing similar failures by individuals, cities and nations. The Church, too, has failed to consistently give the Lord the preeminence. Many of us know such grief and sorrow by our personal failures as well. But, there is hope in Jesus!

God, who has been deeply grieved by our self-exalting thoughts and behaviors, has provided a remedy. The Lord, the “Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief … has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53:3-4). “By His stripes we are healed” (v.5). While some consequences may remain for our failure to always exalt the Lord, there is healing in Him, and in Him alone! Hallelujah!

By Paul Alberts