Hierarchy

 Take out a sheet of paper, number it from one to ten, then itemize the most important things in your life. Be honest with yourself; it’s a pointless exercise if you’re not. No one’s going to see it anyway. No one will judge you if your poodle is a few notches higher than your in-laws or if skincare inched out diet by a rung or two. Assuming you’ve done as I asked, now look on the list and see where God is. Hopefully, He’s on there.

If God’s on the list, it’s a start anyway, but He’s not just supposed to be on the list, but number one with a bullet. In the beginning, God. That should be the motto of the believer throughout their existence, and if that is the case, then wherever their journey takes them, God’s presence will be perpetual.

The point of the exercise is to put God first in all things, all the time, even if, in certain instances, it may be detrimental to your flesh. This mindset is not a gift but a self-imposed practice that becomes habitual given enough time.

A Christian’s hierarchy of needs will always have God at the top of the pyramid, and everything else will flow from that singularly irreplaceable need. Enough songs have been written about men needing the presence of God every hour, every day, all the time, all our lives, whether in joy or pain. You’ve likely sung them, as have I, and hopefully, we weren’t singing lies. Lest our lives be vain and our journey pointless, His presence must abide in our lives, and nothing can take the place of Him on the throne of our hearts.

That’s the way it should be, anyway. Still, once again, spiritual leaders across every denomination felt obliged to make allowances and reinterpret Scripture in that God is not all in all but a portion of the whole. Every day, that slice of the pie that we claim belongs to God gets smaller and shrinks, while the portion we reserved for other things grows and expands.

One must eventually push out the other altogether. One must reign supreme in the heart of man. Whether it’s God or the world, God or your flesh, God or your passions, God or your vices, God or your sin that wins, it depends on which you choose to suffocate and stifle and which you choose to fuel. We can’t say, Lord, cleanse me in one breath, but in another, present Him with a list of things He can’t touch. Fire is indiscriminate. When you ask God to burn out the dross, He will burn out the dross, not just the dross you feel you can live without or the one that your flesh really enjoys.

You can’t ask the Lord to burn away alcoholism even though you don’t like to drink but not go anywhere near lust because you like to dip your toe into ‘what could be if only’ once in a while. Fire is not selective that way, and when you try to hamstring God regarding your sanctification, He will leave you to the desires of your heart.

God can’t force you to be holy. He commands that you be holy. Not just on Sundays, on the Sabbath, or during the remembrance of His resurrection, but in all your conduct, be holy, for He is a holy God. The things your flesh doesn’t want to give up must be first to go.

The parable of the rich young ruler is multi-layered in the lessons it can teach us on this front. He’d done the things that came easiest to him, but deep down, he knew the hard thing was yet to come. If you look at it objectively, this young man was more virtuous than most pastors today. He didn’t commit adultery; he didn’t steal; he didn’t bear false witness; he honored his mom and dad and even loved his neighbor like himself. All those things were easier for him to accomplish than giving up his possessions, selling everything, giving it to the poor, and following after Christ.

Because he had great possessions and his heart was tethered to them, doing that one thing was more difficult than doing all the other things put together. Take on your Goliath first, defeat him utterly, then everything else you need to work on will seem like a breeze. If you put it off until tomorrow, the next day, or next year, your Goliath will keep eating and getting bigger and stronger. 

Even the world sees the benefits of doing the difficult thing first. There was even a book written about it some years ago called Eat the Frog! Some people spend half their lifetime warming up to tackle their biggest hindrance; all the while, that hindrance is growing stronger, its roots are growing deeper, and its walls are growing taller. It’s like cleaning out an overly cluttered garage. Telling ourselves that someday we will doesn’t solve the problem, and with each passing day, it gets worse because you’re throwing new stuff on top of the old stuff.

If you’re having difficulty setting time aside to be alone with God, do it first thing upon waking. If you have difficulty reading the Word, do it first thing in the morning. If you are tempted by something you see, remove the means by which you see them from your eyesight. Structure and prioritize your life in such a way wherein God is always first. In the beginning, God. Then everything else follows that singular principle.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.