HarvestSongs: launch and devotional

My church's worship ministry finally re-launched our website. Lots of goodies, including a devotional I wrote. . . mind if I cross post?

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who is most important...?
When I was younger, I wanted to do it all. Were you ever like this?

I would meet some person, or see some movie and I would want to do emulate it. I would see Wimbleton on TV and go get my tennis racket and start practicing. That was until I would see a concert on TV and immediately start practicing my instrument harder.

Eventually, I wanted to be a fighter pilot/ piano-playing/ super smart/ black-belt/tennis playing/ long distance-running . . . President of the United States who played quarterback and taught at a school and had a family of eleven.

The older I’ve become, the more I’ve asked this question: What is really important? The more I’ve talked to godly men and women and (most importantly) searched the scriptures, the answer is quite obvious...

God is most important.

The parables display Him the pearl of great price and the treasure in a field.[1] They implore us “sell all that you have to gain Him.” Paul begs us to count all things as rubbish in order to gain Christ.[2]

Cain treated Him as unimportant.[3] Pharaoh treated Him as irrelevant.[4] Aaron’s sons treated Him as trifling and trivial .[5] Uzzah treated Him as petty.[6] The Israelites treated Him as optional.[7] Ahab treated Him as ignorable.[8] The Pharisees treated Him as bound to their man-made rules.[9]

All such action leads to ruin.

We must treat God as the most important person and most important object in the universe. The essence of worship is the inner experience of treasuring the true beauty and worth of God. And the outward forms of worship are the acts that show how much we treasure the beauty and worth of God.

We will be exploring different facets of this over the next several months, but let us begin with this most central fact: God is most important.

Dig Deeper: Read Job 38 - 40 and hear God's reasons for being the most important.

[1] Matthew 13
[2] Philippians 3
[3] Genesis 4
[4] Exodus 5
[5] Leviticus 10
[6] 2 Samuel 6
[7] 2 Kings 17
[8] 1 Kings 16
[9] Luke 13