getting them straight
My priorities have been a little messed up lately. Ok, a lot messed up. I feel like my life verse has been Romans 7:19, “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.” I have been living unhealthily both physically and spiritually, and have been turning blessings from God into idols. I want to get my priorities straight. In other words, I want to align them with scripture:
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YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND. – Matthew 22:37
God needs to be first and foremost in my life. He is to be my One and Only.
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YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. – Matthew 22:39
Everything I do should be done out of love. I should consider everyone else and their needs to be just as important as me and my needs.
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Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. – Matthew 5:16
My lifestyle should be a witness to unbelievers. Everything I do should glorify God.
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Praise the LORD with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre. – Psalm 32:2
I need to remember to praise God with my music-making. After all, He was the one who gave me the ability and passion to play.
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For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. – 1 Corinthians 6:20
I should bring glory to God in the way I treat my body – healthily and with purity.
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Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. – Hebrews 12:1-3
I should lay aside things which entangle me, keeping me from running the race well. I have a long list of things which need to go. “Simplify, simplify.”
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January 4th, 2010 at 10:26 pm
Consider also Psalms 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” If your spiritual life is anything like mine you’ve felt the times when your selfishness and failings made you almost too afraid to pray for strength to serve God like you want to, or have faith that God would give strength to you. But “be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble,” (1 Peter 5:5), and you will find like I have these past few months how God can do amazing things! Galatians 5 is a good chapter for heart-searching reading too….