Knowing Him Daily

01.July.2026

God did not say love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind with an asterisk attached, meaning only when your spouse is not demanding more than you have, only when your job is not running you ragged, only when your children are not taking up every spare moment you thought you had, because none of those conditions were ever part of the commandment and none of them change it.

He is first. Full stop.

And He said so from the very beginning: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:3 That is not a suggestion tucked into a list of good ideas. It is number one on the list for a reason, and the new covenant did not erase it, it fulfilled it, which means it still stands and still applies to every believer sitting in every season of life no matter how complicated that season has become.

Jesus summarized the whole of the law this way: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”Matthew 6:33 First. And the promise attached to that first is that everything else finds its proper place after, not before, not instead, after.

“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” Mark 12:30 All, not most, not what is left over after everyone else has taken their portion, but all, which means this is not a passive default, it is an active daily choice. When we make that choice and put Him first, His yoke is easy and His burden is light, because He gives us the power and the strength to encounter everything that would be crushing if we tried to carry it alone and without Him.

I learned this the hard way, because I allowed things to take a place in my heart they were never meant to occupy, handmade items from my grandparents, stuff that people around me knew mattered to me more than it should have, and I have had to repent for allowing anything to hold a space that belonged only to Him, and I am telling you it is not easy but it is necessary and it is worth it.

Nothing takes His place. Not your spouse, not your children, not your job, not your stuff. He is first because He said so, and He said so because He knows that when He is first everything else is held properly and nothing else crushes you under the weight of a position it was never designed to carry.

Can I live without it? The honest answer is that we have to be willing to, because willingness is the surrender, and when we surrender it, more often than not we discover we did not have to live without it after all, because He either restores it in its proper place or replaces it with something far better than what we were holding onto.

Make today count and see you tomorrow.