Giving God First Place

Proverbs 8:22

If some corporate position is the god of your life, then something terrible occurs within when it is no longer a future possibility. If your career, however, is simply a part of God’s plan and you keep it in proper perspective, you can handle a demotion just as well as you can handle a promotion.

It all depends on who’s first and what’s first.

Breaking the magnet that draws things ahead of God is a lengthy and sometimes painful process.

There is a line found in the Jewish Talmud that puts it well: “Man is born with his hands clenched; he dies with them wide open. Entering life, he desires to grasp everything; leaving the world, all he possessed has slipped away.”

Just remember: Whatever is in first place, if it isn’t Christ alone, it is in the wrong place.

Excerpted from Wisdom for the Way by Charles Swindoll. Copyright © 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll. Used by permission of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. www.harpercollinschristian.com.

Posted in Christian Living, Men and tagged .

Pastor Charles R. Swindoll has devoted his life to the accurate, practical teaching and application of God’s Word. He is the founding pastor of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, but Chuck’s listening audience extends far beyond a local church body. As a leading programme in Christian broadcasting since 1979, Insight for Living airs around the world. Chuck’s leadership as president and now chancellor emeritus at Dallas Theological Seminary has helped prepare and equip a new generation of men and women for ministry.