Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness and all these will be given to you as well.”
Exodus 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before me.”
Our Heavenly Father, we thank God for giving us Matthew 6:33 which many of us can recite word perfect from memory. But Thou knoweth too well, how we have failed to actually seek Thee first in our lives, the way we used our time shows our waywardness, we do our Quiet Time only when we have spare time and spare energy; we come for church prayer service or small group meeting or bible study ONLY when we have nothing else to attend to; we come for worship service out of convenience; and we serve Thee only when it does not take up too much of our time.
Just like Aaron and the children of Israel in the Sinai wilderness, we too are guilty of making idols and worshipping “strange gods”. We have made idols of ourselves; idols of I, me and my family; and we give most of our time and our lives to these idols instead of our Almighty God. We harbour the “strange gods” in the dark,deep corners of our hearts; position, power, popularity, praises of man, wealth, careers, loved ones, our pride, our “faces” even our own selfish self! How we treasure these “gods” and worship and serve them.
We allow our lives to be ruled by them, letting them take precedence over Yahweh. O, how idolatrous a people we are! Cleanse and forgive us, Father.
“Flee from idolatry”: (1 Cor 10:14) is what we must do. Help us to truly seek Thee first, and ascribe to Thee top priority in our lives by setting aside time for all our appointments with the Lord of lords and King of kings; our daily Quiet Time, our Bible study time, weekly church prayer service, small group meeting, Lord’s Day worship, our times of service, etc. May we pray, mark it and remember it in our planners or digitial diaries.
And when we serve Thee, may we serve only thee, could we possibly be serving anyone else? O wretched, sinful people that we can be, we confess, Father, how self serving we can be. Forgive us, and make us truly God serving, that our service may be God-honouring and God-glorifying.
This may seem so difficult to do and maybe to some of us it may be even seem impossible. But, Father, Thou hast assured us in Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthenth me.”
“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” Jer 33:3.
Sister Elaine Liew
