Living the life of a Christian — a follower of Christ — is not always an easy task. It takes disciplined commitment each day. It takes diligence to keep Christ first in your life. It doesn’t just happen.
Once following Christ moves to second place in your life, it’s just a matter of time before He has no place in your life. Christ should always be first.
How do you make Christ first in your life, and keep Him there?
The first step is you must desire to make Him first, then pray for God’s help to do it. Our life is a spiritual battle, and prayer is our primary weapon. The enemy does not want Christ to be first in your life. Therefore, if you are to make Him first, you need help.
1 John 5: 14-15 says: “And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.”
If you truly desire for Christ to be first in your life, the first step is to pray for it, and pray consistently. It is God’s will that He should be first in your life. Therefore, when you pray according to His will, you can be confident that He will answer that prayer.
The second step is to commit to make Him first. Making Christ first in your life begins with discipline — doing the things you ought to do. As you pray to make Him first, and discipline yourself to do so, you’ll find over time the discipline changes to desire — you desire to do the things you ought to do.
The first discipline is to give Him time each day. Rather than racing out of the house each morning to go to work, slow down and spend time with the Lord first. Here’s an important truth I learned years ago: I can always trust God to take care of things while I slow down to seek Him. In fact, I take considerable time from my business to spend time with the Lord, and He’s always faithful to take care of my business in my absence. And He can do the same with you. It really doesn’t matter how busy you are. It’s merely a choice you make — you choose to make Him first, or you choose not too.
The second discipline in making Christ first in your life involves your finances. Are you holding back out of worry of making ends meet, or are you giving cheerfully and abundantly, trusting Christ to take care of your needs (see my Radical Faith audios on Financial Stewardship for more details)? If you commit to make Christ first in your life, then “Honor the LORD from your wealth and from the first of all your produce” (Prov. 3:9). Prove your commitment with your checkbook.
And finally, the third step in making Christ first is to be thankful. We take so many of the Lord’s blessings for granted. However, once we begin consistently thanking Him for what He gives us and how He provides for us, something wonderful happens. We fall deeper in love with Him and appreciate His goodness even more. As we do, a sincere desire and yearning wells up from deep within us to make Him more of a priority. It’s much like when a friend constantly helps you and is always there to help out in tough times, you appreciate that person more and desire to give back in return. The same happens in our relationship with Christ as we constantly acknowledge how good He’s been to us. We grow more thankful of what He has truly done for us, and that thankfulness creates a yearning to spend more time with Him and make Him more of a priority.
… Beatty Carmichael