Fill in the blank: “____________ means everything to me!”
Everybody has an “everything.” Maybe it’s a spouse or children or a circle of friends. It could be high enough scores to get into a certain degree program.
It might be gaining success in a certain sport or a career, being liked and admired, living a certain lifestyle, always looking great—you get the idea. We all have something that means the world to us, and that thing is our everything.
And that’s where life gets tricky. When we give a person, thing, or goal our primary attention, allegiance, and affection, in a real sense we worship it (because worship is the act of ascribing value to something).
But God says, “Worship Me. Make Me your everything.” It only makes sense that the perfect Creator and source of everything good would want His creatures to wrap their lives around Him.
God can’t be your everything while something else is. You can’t be chiefly devoted to God and also to your career, your image, your position and your bank account balance.
God can’t be ultimate in your life if your children hold the top spot. God’s Word says we are to put God first; we are to make Him our everything. We acknowledge that all we have—“every good and perfect gift” (James 1:17)—comes from Him.
We worship the Giver, not the gifts. We appreciate all the blessings that God sends our way—good looks or smarts or talents or business acumen or educational opportunities—but we don’t turn good things into ultimate things.
The challenge today and every day is to make God your everything—to live in such a way that “in everything he might have the supremacy” (Colossians 1:18). Is He foremost in your life?
Maybe you relate to the song “All I Want Is Everything.” The gospel says we find everything only when we give up everything and make God our everything.
What is your everything today? What normal human desires threaten to trump God in your life?
