What do Christians mean by "putting God first"

I've often heard Christians say they put God first, even before family. I wonder how that manifests itself in the day-to-day life of a Christian. I can't imagine a situation in which you'd be forced to choose God over your family.

I understand this to mean that we conform our conscience to living our lives as God wills (or desires) us to live our lives. What this means is that to love our family, friends, & our fellow people, we need to love God in order to truly love others & if we do not love them, we do not love God.

The foundations for this are in the old testament (Deuteronomy 5 & 6 & Leviticus 19). By loving God, keeping His moral commandments (the 10 commandments etc.) & doing good to others the law is established. The Lord Jesus Christ expands & further establishes the law (see Matthew 5:17); indeed the whole sermon on the mount (Matthew 5,6, & 7) covers this. This is the basis for how we should want to be treated & be treated by others (see Matthew 7:12 & read 7:1-12, Luke 6:31 & read 6:31-49). The capstone to this is to love God & our neighbor (see Matthew 22:36-40, Luke 10:25-37 etc.). The Lord Jesus Christ also explains this to his disciples in John 15:12-17.

While this is plausible to explain, it is the utmost challenge for anyone to live by. If you need to access the above passages online go here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/

InquiringMind500 said:

I can't imagine a situation in which you'd be forced to choose God over your family.

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I don't think "forced" is a good word since we have free will, but it seems to me that an obvious example situation would be when all of the family wants to do something ungodly. Maybe they all decide to become Satanists, or all want to go to a strip bar, etc. I've known several Christians who grew up in a family of unbelievers and they always felt pressured to participate in events that God would not have approved of.

Just think about it, how do you 'put God first' exactly? God is very powerful and doesn't need anything from us. So if you look into the scripture, as Jesus put it, the most important law (that we can follow) is to Love your neighbors as yourself.

So basically put God first means love others, and in that case if your family are in the business of harming others (i.e. human trafficking), then you have to put other people first instead of your family.

I've often heard Christians say they put God first, even before family. I wonder how that manifests itself in the day-to-day life of a Christian. I can't imagine a situation in which you'd be forced to choose God over your family.

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What does it mean to put God first? Well, just look at the life of Jesus. He put God first better than anyone ever has. His whole life rotated around the will of God the Father. His goals, and investments, and actions all conformed to what it was God intended Jesus should do. God was not an accessory to Christ's life but the hub, the center of it, around which all that Jesus did revolved. And when it cost Jesus everything to follow the will of God his response was, "Not my will but yours be done." Not many believers actually live in this entirely sold-out-to-God manner. When they do, though, the positive impact of their life upon others is enormous.

Selah.

dcalling said:

Just think about it, how do you 'put God first' exactly? God is very powerful and doesn't need anything from us. So if you look into the scripture, as Jesus put it, the most important law (that we can follow) is to Love your neighbors as yourself.

So basically put God first means love others, and in that case if your family are in the business of harming others (i.e. human trafficking), then you have to put other people first instead of your family.

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That's not what Jesus actually says in Matthew 22:35-39:

And one of them, a lawyer, asked [Jesus] a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And [Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.

InquiringMind500 said:

I've often heard Christians say they put God first, even before family. I wonder how that manifests itself in the day-to-day life of a Christian. I can't imagine a situation in which you'd be forced to choose God over your family.

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At various times and places, and in some countries even today, parents will throw young people out of the house into the street for converting to Christianity. Those young people are putting God first, even before family.

All of God's Law hang on two great commandments:

"“(1) You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, (2) and your neighbor as yourself.”

Loving your God means loving what He loves (righteousness) and hating what He hates (sin and wickedness). It means obeying Him in all aspects of our lives, ever seeking to do what pleases Him (do His will).

Loving your neighbour as yourself is an example of loving God. Because God has made us in His image, you need to love your neighbour to be able to love God. Because if you cannot even love those whom you can see, you cannot love God whom you cannot see. Therefore, everything contrary to loving your neighbour, every form of selfishness is sin because all these are contrary to God's commands. In fact, all sin originates from a lack of love (selfishness), therefore love has no law.

Dear InquiringMind500. God is All-knowing, All-loving, and All-caring, God is Love. God knows our past, present, and future, wouldn't God know what is best for us? We know that God does not force us, we are free to choose our way of life, either with God - or without God. God is in command of every situation, God knows the beginning and the end, and because Christians
Love and Trust and Know God, it is a Loving and Trusting Assurance to
" put God first every time." I say this with love, InquiringMind. Greetings from Emmy, your sister in Christ.

I can't imagine a situation in which you'd be forced to choose God over your family.

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Sometimes it's choosing God over ourselves, for our family heh...
Imagine getting into an argument, convinced your way is right, but knowing you need to support your family's growth and learning. Choosing God's way might mean conceding -- considering your own rightness to be petty, and letting people learn the hard way.

More specifically about God, there might be disputes over how money and time are spent when a person has an internal commitment to serve humanity and ministries. Being out a couple nights per week at meetings, or charitable giving when the budget is already tight.

I'd guess your question assumes a loving and stable family situation, but those are precious and not always available. People find themselves in situations where they are asked to cover for crimes. Imagine if a spouse wants to cheat on joint taxes... asks you to take the wheel when they've been drinking and a cop is pulling them over... develops a drug habit and wants you to hide the evidence.

Choosing God is not necessarily about ethics, but often about looking at the long-term consequences in people's lives and hearts, overall well-being. Sometimes it's more spiritual than that, but generally about setting aside the easiest way out, in preference of getting better long-term results.

InquiringMind500 said:

I've often heard Christians say they put God first, even before family. I wonder how that manifests itself in the day-to-day life of a Christian. I can't imagine a situation in which you'd be forced to choose God over your family.

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My wife me was a herion addict when we first met. She told me she was not using when we married. On the honey moon I found out she was. The next 4 years was hell on earth.

At first the family supported us and helped any way they could but over the years as she would be in recovery, and good for a month or so she would fall back in to the life style, over and over the cycle would repeat till one by one they all dropped away. Then it got worse. Because at some point both families could not understand why or how someone would stay with someone that absolutly everyone had given up on, unless I too was an addict. Then the demands that I divorce her started. Then the shunning to keep us away from the family/kids and gatherings...

So how is choosing my wife over my family choosing God?
Aside from my vow, God very easily on in all my prayers showed me a parallel between her sin, repentance, and fall back into sin, and my own. Then He locked me in with the parable of the unmerciful servant. The one about the servant who owe his master a huge debt and could not pay, as his master was to throw him in prision, he begged for forgiveness of the debt and the master forgave him.. Then the wicked servant went out and saw a fellow servant who owed him a much smaller debt. Even though the second servant asked him for forgiveness as he had asked his master, the wicked servant has the second servant thrown in prision. When the master found out he was furious and had the wicked servant thrown in prision.

I knew I was the servant who had been forgiven a much greater debt, and I knew my wife was a fellow servant who owed a much smaller debt to me. And I knew so long as she tried to get out of this and worked the programs, I owed her the oppertunity because my own sin against God far outweighs her sin against me.

How many times are we to forgive our neighbor? 7x70? I figure wives should get a little more consideration than we give a stranger/neighbor.

So I stayed with her and my vow to help her In and out of all the storms of life, and we came out on th otherside much stronger for it.

You may never be asked to choose as I did, but your heart needs to be in a place to choose God if you were. Otherwise know you are in violation of our greatest command. That is to love our Lord God with all of our being.

To me, "putting God first" means putting my selfishness aside. Consider what God has commanded us in relation to our families:

"Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged." - Colossians 3:18-21

Follow God, and a lot of preventable family troubles don't come up, or are minimized. This becomes more apparent when we consider God's commands to work, provide for our families, avoid drunkenness, and to be faithful to our spouses.

Simple, putting God first would mean you would do what God wants you to do, regardless of what your family, friends and even you yourself would want to do.

This.

Sketcher said:

To me, "putting God first" means putting my selfishness aside. Consider what God has commanded us in relation to our families:

"Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged." - Colossians 3:18-21

Follow God, and a lot of preventable family troubles don't come up, or are minimized. This becomes more apparent when we consider God's commands to work, provide for our families, avoid drunkenness, and to be faithful to our spouses.

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dcalling said:

Just think about it, how do you 'put God first' exactly? God is very powerful and doesn't need anything from us. So if you look into the scripture, as Jesus put it, the most important law (that we can follow) is to Love your neighbors as yourself.

Click to expand...

There are abstract considerations too, not just ones involving other people, but our consideration of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, which are abstract concepts that are rooted in God's nature. These can involve other people but they can also involve ourselves. If we are not honest with ourselves, if we are bad to ourselves, if we do not see out what is beautiful in ourselves, then we are not really living out the first Great Commandment.