“Our Daily Bread”   

http://odb.org/2012/12/03/the-spirit-of-the-age/

The Daily Devotions of Greg Laurie                                  

http://www.harvest.org/devotional/daily-devotions/home.ht

Exodus 20:2-3… “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.³ “You shall have no other gods before Me.”  (NKJV)

God gave Moses a list of 10 Commandments, which God carved on two pieces of stone with His finger (Exodus 31:18)…  The opening scripture is the first of these instructions God gave to Moses, to bring down from Mount Sinai for the Israelites…

As we approach the Christmas holiday, if we consider ourselves to be a Christian…God still wants us to be obedient to His first commandment…  God will either be first and foremost in our heart, our mind, and our soul…or some other god will be deemed more important than the One and only true God; who in the beginning, made the heavens and the earth…Genesis 1:1…

Throughout the Bible there were all kinds of false gods that people worshiped… Examples would be Baal, the god of fertility and rain (Judges 2:13), and Diana, the Roman goddess of Ephesus (Acts 19:24)…

But anything that becomes more important than God Himself, would be considered a god…  The www.thefreedictionary.com/god  defines god as…  3. any person or thing to which excessive attention is given (money was his god)…  This means any person, or object like video games or our cell phone with texting, or our job along with our love of money…that is placed before God, would be considered our god…

Jesus tells us that His first and most important commandment is to love the Lord with all of our heart, all of our mind, and all of our soul…Matthew 22:37-38…  Jesus also tells us that we cannot serve two masters, in…Matthew 6:24… “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”  (NKJV)   Mammon in the New Testament describes wealth or greed…

This holiday season…if you are a Christian, and God is not now first in your life…put the “Christ” back in Christmas by humbly submitting your life again to our heavenly Father…  With God back in charge of your life, He will be free to bless you with a new-found joy and an inner peace that will make this Christmas a most special time of your life…

Heavenly Father, as Christmas comes upon us once again, urge all of Your children to do a self-check of their priorities…  Help us Lord, to keep You first and foremost in all that we say and do…  And Lord…let Your light so shine within us, that others around us can’t help but to ask us the reason for the hope that lies within us (1 Peter 3:15)… I pray for this spiritual state of peace and good will for all of Your children, in Jesus’ most precious name and for His sake…Amen…

written by bruce r mills