Sunday: Habit – Seek God First
We all have habits. The question is: What kind are they? Good or bad? Of all the good habits a Christian could have, seeking God first thing every day would have to be the most important one of all.
Image © Lars Justinen from GoodSalt.com
“Every morning dedicate yourself, soul, body, and spirit, to God. Establish habits of devotion and trust more and more in your Saviour.” – Ellen G. White, Mind, Character, and Personality, vol. 1, p. 15. With a habit like that, we surely would enter through the “narrow . . . gate” that leads to life (Matt. 7:14, NKJV).
God said, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exod. 20:3, NKJV). Jesus said, in the context of our basic needs, to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matt. 6:33, NKJV), and we have also been told: “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13, NKJV).
Read Matthew 22:37-38; Acts 17:28; Ephesians 5:15-17; and Colossians 3:23. What is said here that can help us understand how to put God first in our lives?
Of all our examples in seeking the Lord first, none is of course a better one than the example of Jesus. Jesus put His Father first in everything. We begin to see this priority during His Passover visit to Jerusalem as a child. When confronted by His mother, who had found Him “in the temple”, He said to her, “I must be about My Father’s business” (Luke 2:46, Luke 2:49, NKJV).
Throughout His life, Jesus craved communion with His Father, as evidenced by His habitual prayer life. This habit was something that the disciples did not fully understand. All the powers of darkness could not separate Jesus from the Father, because Jesus made it a habit to keep totally connected with Him.
We can follow Jesus’ example by making the decision to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul (Matt. 22:37). By praying, studying God’s Word, and seeking to emulate the character of Jesus in all that we do, we will form the habit of making God first in our life. And for a Christian, what better habit could there be?
| Ask yourself: Have I really made God first in my life? How do you know? |
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I love this quarter's topic and that i have learnt something really important for both my spiritual (being a better steward for God and the habits) and financial life style. I realised i am nothing without my God, when i do not seek Him first, a piece of me is missing. This quarter will end soon but i hope that as it ends we will continue to be blessed on what we learnt and not forget.
I look forward to the next quarter and cannot wait to see whats in store.
May God bless and be with us all.
It is a pity how we neglect secret Prayers and yet evil spirits hover over every place in this planet. The life of Lord Jesus perfectly exemplify how we should be living in order to win the huge battle we engage in daily against the powers of darkness. I love how today's lesson is taking us back to Jesus and how He coped with it all.
We had a wouderful article of how to deal with habits yesterday by Phil. Today the author of the lesson lays out how to form good habits. "Every morning dedicate yourself, soul, body, and spirit, to God. Establish habits of devotion and trust more and more in your Saviour.” not only does this give us passage through the narrow gate into heaven someday soon, it also creates the atmosphere of heaven on earth before we get there. Prayer, reciting Bible texts, and having a song on our heart certainly helps us to stay on the path. One song I like is: At the cross. At the cross, where I 1st saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away, rolled away. It was there by faith I received my sight, and now, and now, and now I am happy all the way.
Seek God, put Him as your only God, put Him 1st. Prove you have been with Jesus who is all your righteousness.
What will take care of itself means in Matthew 6:34? What is wrong with planning goals?
"therefore, do not worry..." is what Jesus is teaching here. He also taught that we are to "count the cost", which requires planning ahead.
The point is to trust God in that which we cannot control, while seeking the heavenly wisdom for that which we are held accountable to control.
That's one of the secrets to success, prayer!
And prayer is in the heart of the communication with God! How can I communicate with the owner of the whole universe? Through prayer! We are nothing here in this planet, but God loves us so much that He gave us His only Son! Although we may feel hurt or down we are not destroyed! Prayer is the channel to develop our relationship with the Creator Himself! Who else can ease our anxieties and worries? God can transform us from within! From the heart to the mind! In a world full of sufferings He can still make us happy by turning us His instruments of blessings to others!
Yes, to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls, bodies, spirit, strength, etc. is the very first commandment. But without the second commandment to: love our neighbour as ourselves, that first commandment does no one any good. In fact that is what monks and other types of hermit-like lives end up with in trying to live out the first commandment without incorporating the second one. They do no one else any good but themselves.
Thanks Pete , this means I should love my neighbors the same way God has loved me and I Him. Then is law and the prophets fulfilled. Wow!
Last question: "How do you know?"
If we seek God first in everything, we will know. If we aren't sure or don't know how to know, then we simply don't seek Him first. This seeking will change everything for the better, yet it will increase trials at the same time, be aware of it.
Probably the best answer to this question is found in Isa 26:3. Yes?
What does such peace look like? Notice the sinking boat, the storm, wind and raging billows crashing over the ship, the toiling and fearful sailors, while Jesus sleeps peacefully in the midst of it all. They had to wake him up! Yes, like that. Storms about you? Do you still find peace and rest there?
Today's lesson is spot-on when it says that making the kingdom of God the first priority in our life is the most important habit we can cultivate.
For anyone who is reading this that may feel their life is an 'out-of-control' mess (whether due to their own actions or not), or that like the disciple Peter they are drowning in a sea of problems and difficulties, I would like to share a paragraph from Ellen White that promises that God can and will make a way out of that mess when we are genuine in our desire to make His kingdom the central focus in/of our lives:
Though I don't know who you are or your specific circumstances, if you feel this comment speaks to your situation, please also know that I have upheld you in my prayers to God on your behalf - that God will fulfill this promise for you today and for each day that you continue to need it.
I have tried to Love God with all my heart and it just doesn't work for me. The only way I can Love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength is that His Spirit of Love develops that fruit in my heart. This kind of Love makes it easy to do the will of God because it is the very motivation of the will of God, and He motivates this will in me. It takes my surrender to Him and my permission for Him to motivate me. Receiving this motivation from God produces the Glory of God in my life. THANK YOU LORD!!!