What’s Your Major?

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently 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. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom.” Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 17:18-20 

“Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” Colossians 3:1-2

From the earliest days of Israel, the Lord God made clear what was to be His people’s highest priority and first love. God knew the flesh nature, that theirs would be a constant struggle against loving and serving themselves. If they sought and loved Him first, all else would flow. They were to remind themselves and each other of this Sh’ma, their one priority, again and again, to connect hearing and action as an expression of their commitment to their God. (Genesis 3:1-6)

This repeated refrain would also serve us well to keep the Lord at the fore. We have many deterrents to wholehearted commitment, from vociferous impulses to a wide worldly menu of distraction and entertainment. While the pull to major in anything but the Lord is forceful, it can be resisted with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Where have I lost my first love of Christ, and what has caused my drift? Do I earnestly desire to put Him first, and live under and from His supremacy? What will I do today to correct my allegiances, to put away lesser gods in order to hear and heed God as my highest priority and focus? (Joshua 24:14-24; Revelation 2:4-5)

“Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
naught be all else to me, save that thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.” ~St. Dallán Forgaill (530-598)

Lord God, may I neither major on the minors nor minor on the majors, but hold and love You first of all.