By Staff
Todd Panter
Guest writer
Did you know when God created the Universe, He established an order in all that He made?
If the earth were just a little bit closer to the sun it would be too hot to for us to live. If it were just a little bit further away the temperature would be too cold for anything to survive. The oxygen level is exactly where it has to be for life to continue on this planet.
These are but a few of the things that demonstrate God's order.
It is not only in the big things that the Lord created a specific order, but also in the very smallest things. He also established the way in which our lives are supposed to be run. There will be many relationships we will encounter over the course of our lives and I certainly will not attempt to cover them all here. There are three, however, that are not only the most important according to God, but He also places them in order of importance they should be in our lives.
The importance of the family is stressed throughout Scripture and it has even reached the point where the secular world has picked up on this in recent times. I have seen advertisements, commercials, and slogans with messages along the lines of, "put the children first," or "it all starts with the family." Now while I will agree with the folks out there saying the moral decline in this country begins in the home, there is really a much deeper problem: our lives are out of order.
Can our family be considered an idol? If we place our family members above God in importance then the answer is yes. Now most of us would never say that we place other things or people ahead of God but we sure do demonstrate it.
I have visited with many people who have told me that they have to work six days a week and Sunday is the only time they have to spend together as a family. This life cycle continues to go on and on and they just barely are able to keep their heads above water. Do we think that God will bless us if He is not first in our lives? He has said that our relationship with Him must be above everything else.
Second on the list of importance is our relationship with our spouse, if we have one. Parents who put their children first or even second are going against what God has established. He has set up the marriage relationship to be holy. People who put their children before their spouse will not only cause their marriage to suffer but are possibly setting up another generation to do the same thing. How do our kids ever get to see what a covenant relationship between husband and wife is supposed to be like if they don't see it from their parents?
After the relationship between husband and wife comes the one between parents and children. God also places much importance on this one. We should love our children and spend time with them. Though everyone is responsible for their own soul, the parents are charged with the responsibility of teaching and training their child up in the ways of the Lord. I don't recall reading in Scripture where we must strive to give our children everything we didn't have or allow them to completely fill up our lives with their activities. Now I love sports and probably always will, but in recent years the Lord has taught me to keep them in perspective. Every Sunday in churches all across this land we have people who are not among us because their children are involved in some type of sports activity. What is this teaching our kids? What does it show the non-believers who are on the teams with our kids?
The cards have been dealt out and the order is God, Spouse, and Children. This is the order that comes from the Bible. How many of our problems today are caused when we start shuffling the deck?