First Attention...

I read recently that if you live near a large city you will see 2400 marketing messages every day. With so many things reaching out for our attention, it takes effort to stay focused on what’s important. God established our prime focus point long ago…
“You’ve experienced firsthand how I spoke with you from Heaven. Don’t make gods of silver and gods of gold and set them alongside me” ~Ex. 20:22
God showed Himself to Israel on the mountain in an awesome display of power. Then Moses ascended into the smoke to talk with God face to face. That is a major story all its own. During that conversation God delivered the 10 commandments. The first commandment He gave was ‘don’t have any other gods before me’. That was the biggest thing on God’s mind for His newly adopted people. He wanted to be their first affection! In the land at that time there were visible gods for nearly every human desire. The people they would be displacing in the land of Canaan had gods, gods and more gods. The temptation would be high for Israel to reach for one of these visible idols rather than continuing to trust the invisible God. We have the same temptation today. It’s easy to give our attention to many of the visible desire available today and overlook the call of the invisible leader who lives inside us. Easy as it might be, it limits our flow of strength. Christ makes it clear that He longs to be our FIRST ATTENTION. So many things hang in the balance of that commitment. ~Verlon