This is my life verse, the verse that God "quickened" to me, as the sweaty, earnest Pentecostal preachers of my youth would say. Applicable to everyone, but uniquely resonating with me, these words from Matthew's gospel reveal life's most basic truth. That it contains the word "first," adds a layer of appropriateness for the beginning of the new year.
These are the days we focus on fresh starts, clean slates and priorities. We wrestle all year with diets, personal goals and abject failures, then, for a brief seven days, we are expected to let all that go and change.
We can't, you know. Read the story of Israel in the Old Testament. People haven't changed in 4,000 (or is it 6,000?) years. On our own, we are stiff-necked, hard-hearted, self-consumed and rudderless. On our own, we are hopeless. Dangerously so.
It doesn't have to be that way. This red-letter command simplifies it all and offers all the hope in the world. You have one priority. Just one. Seek God first. The rest will come.
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