How to Live by Priorities

We have arrived at the heart of the Ten Commandments – the one that underpins all the others; the great rule that we are to have no other gods but the one true and living God.

The God who gave these commandments is not a distant, aloof God. He is a God who, through Jesus, has come down alongside us, to show us who he is and make it as easy as he can for us to enter into relationship with him.

In dying on the cross, the totally innocent Jesus became one of us and took our place. Through that awful death lies our forgiveness, our freedom, and our future. We are redeemed.

None of us can keep the Ten Commandments. The only person who ever has is Jesus. It’s because he was able to live a life that pleased God in every way that he was able to pay the price for our lives, which fall short in so many ways.

So what should characterise our relationship with God? As in any relationship, it’s about time, and I’d encourage you to carve out time, every day, just to be with him.

Here’s what I try and do during my times with God:

Praise him. One of the best antidotes to this generation’s biggest problem, our obsession with ourselves, is worshipping and thanking him for all he has done.

Read the Bible and discover what he’s saying to me through it, stopping me from listening constantly either to my own words or the advice and opinions of the world around me.

Lay my life open to him, asking him to show me where I’ve lived in ways that have harmed our relationship, and asking for his forgiveness.

Bring my needs and concerns to him, helping me to give everything over to God.

These four – praise, reading the Bible, saying sorry, and praying for ourselves and others – have been the main elements of time spent with God by Christians for two thousand years.

So at the end of our series on the Ten Commandments, I want to conclude practically, by encouraging you to pray the following prayer. It’s a radical prayer of commitment to God, giving him everything and trusting him with all we are and all we have, from this day on. It is not a prayer that can be prayed lightly or flippantly. It is a prayer that transforms our lives.

Holy God, I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed by you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty; let me have all things, let me have nothing; I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

To pray this is only possible because we know that the God to whom we pray knows us and loves us. Therefore, we can trust his promises and give ourselves to obeying his commands, relying on his endless forgiveness, grace, and strength.