Not just #1

In Luke 14:26 Jesus says, "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." Here Jesus is telling us that if we don't hate everything in comparison to Him, we aren't following Him. Jesus isn't telling us to hate our family and friends, He is telling us that the difference between our love for them and our love for Him should be as great a gap as hate and love. I am reading a book called not a fan by Kyle Idleman, (a book you should all read!) and in the book he talks about how we shouldn't be "fans" of Jesus, we should be whole fully committed to following Jesus. Just loving Jesus and putting Him as #1 in our life isn't good enough, He wants to be, and should be, the ONLY thing in our life! Kyle Idleman compares this to a husband and wife relationship. Say a husband goes out on a date with a women other than his wife, and his wife finds out about it. She would of course be hurt, angry, and broken over his disloyalty. But what if the husband then tells her "I went on a date with that women, but you know you will always be #1 with me!" will that make things any better? Certainly not! His wife doesn't want to be the first of many, she wants to be the ONLY one. It is the same with us and God. God wants to be the only one in our life. We have to be careful about putting Him on the same list as anything else. There is no second place with God, there is only a first and He is that first. Make sure that He is the ONLY one in your life.