Once upon a time, there was a young man who was so vibrant for God and everything about him was to glorify God. He would literally spend hours everyday to pray, in fact while his classes were ongoing he was busy praying, he was so obsessed with God that he preferred reading his bible than his books.
Guess what! during those periods he had no gadgets like not even a torchlight phone, at a point he started praying and asking God to bless him with a phone, he promised to always send Bible verses to his friends and to inspire them in spending more time with God, like he was so eager to get a phone because he felt he could do more for God when he has one.
Later on, he got a phone and the first month with his phone: the fire and zeal for God was still there but gradually in between his first & second month he completely changed, he spent more time with his phone than when he had none, the fire or passion he had for God was burning away, his prayers became so empty because he would rather play random songs on YouTube without being led by the Holy Spirit, unlike before when he had no phone he would worship God with his lips and all of his heart.
He reads his Bible on his phone without meditating because messages pop in from different social media.
A day came and he saw a verse in the bible Exodus 23:3-4;
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth".
This leads me to the question:
What or who are you worshipping?
What is that thing that takes more of your time?
Who's at the center of your heart?
Do you know that the things or activities that take more of your time are idols?
Do you know that the people or things you put first before God are idols?
I believe when God told us not to serve or worship any other God asides Him, He literally meant, asides worshipping idols. We should be mindful of the things we put first before him because whatever thing that dethrones God in your life is already an idol and this could be social media, movies, outing, fashion, lust, sleeping etc. This is so sad that a lot of times we spend hours doing the wrong things. We were created to give our ALL to God which includes spending more time with Him.
I attended a program recently and we were asked "how long do you spend with your phone? aaaah a lot of us said 8 hrs, 5 hrs, 6 hrs and someone said every hour! Hmm it was funny but wasn't funny" then we were asked " how long do you pray? the highest someone could pray was 5 minutes, some don't even pray at all, I was speechless.
Now ask yourself, if you were told to rate God's place in your life from 1-10, where would He be? Will He be your number one???
See, if God cannot be your number one, then FORGET IT because your life is in a BIG MESS!
The Bible reminds us in Matthew 6:33 to seek ye first the kingdom of God and every other thing shall be added on to you.
Beloved what are you seeking first? What's your number one priority in life?
SEEK ABBA FATHER, FIND HIM, KNOW HIM, SPEND TIME WITH HIM, LOVE HIM WHOLEHEARTEDLY AND EVERYTHING YOU NEED IN LIFE INCLUDING YOUR NEEDS, WHAT YOU WILL DO, WHERE YOU WILL GO, WHO YOU WILL BE WITH, YOUR WELL BEING, WILL BE PROVIDED.
Shalom!
Image Credit: doubleedgemusic.com