Reserved for God Alone

Deut. 4:39. “Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the Lord Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.” God's uniqueness is absolute. He alone is God ?? self?existent, eternal, uncreated. And because of His uniqueness, we must deal with Him in a way that is completely different than anyone or any thing else in life. Only God is to be worshiped. The very first of the Ten Commandments is an empirical statement: "You shall have no other gods before Me." Exod. 20:3. That means It has always been, and always will be, wrong to give God's preeminence to anything, or anybody, other than God Himself.
Question? Why do we not make God the ultimate concern in our lives? Be honest about it. We don’t. God is usually always not the most important priority in our daily lives. We are certainly not aware of the many things that displace God and relegate Him to a lesser status in the list of our everyday priorities. Yet, we may still claim that God is the only object of our worship. But the degree of time and enthusiasm that we devote to our "idols" and to Caesar is indisputable evidence that God is no longer the most important thing in our life.
a. The most important question we can ask ourselves is, “How do I make the proper, conscious, decisions about the priority of God in my life.” Matt. 22:19?21. Jesus teaches this very important principle. What’s He talking about? What spiritual principle is revealed? We need to give the world it’s due. What does the world have coming? Where does it stand in the priority of what’s most important in your life? Eternally, Eternally, what can the world give you?
2. Who is Caesar? What figure of speech does Caesar represent? Caesar was a ruler who represented himself as a god, (“Caesar is lord.”) He represents anything in this world or in our lives that we put ahead of God Himself. Therefore, things that are to be given to God, must be reserve only for Him and not for our worldly pursuits. We should, “Never render to any other, what alone is the Lord's.” Why? Because it makes Caesar and the world he rules more important than God. Why do we render to Caesar before we render unto God the things that are rightly His? I hope you find the answer to that question in your own life.
3. Acts 20:32.

Spur - 03/30/03 pm