Loving God more and getting closer to Him should be the top priority of our lives. Anything else that becomes a top priority is an idol. An idol can be anyone or anything we place our affection and trust in above God. Our most important resolution should be to keep Him first in our lives. This is a constant battle. What is the most effective way to do this?
Making New Year’s resolutions can be helpful, but even more helpful is making daily resolutions. There are biblical examples of things we can do every day to fortify our daily resolve to keep this the “main thing” in our lives. In the New Testament, we are all called to be priests, and the first duties of priests, under the Old Covenant, is a great example of how we can keep our daily devotion to God.
The first thing a priest did each morning was to wash in the brazen laver. This laver was made of mirrors, which reflected the priests’ images, so they would know the areas of their bodies needing to be cleansed. As we are instructed in Ephesians 5:26, we are to be washed by the pure water of His Word. This tells us as priests how we should spend the beginning of each day in His Word and cleanse ourselves from the other tasks we must do that day.
Next, the priest lit the incense on the altar of incense. As we see in the Scriptures, incense speaks of prayer and worship. The priest was instructed to also do this as his last duty each night, so there would be a “perpetual incense” before the Lord (see Exodus 30:7-8). Again, this tells us as priests to light the fire of prayer and worship as one of the first things we do each morning, and one of the last things we do each night. This will help us remain in a continual place of prayer and worship before the Lord.
The Lord has not made any demands on His disciples for which He has not given us wisdom and instructions. Still, we must search them out, which is a basic discipline of a disciple. Such searching on our part fortifies us in His truth, and the thrill of finding it makes us treasure it. . God does not hide things from us, but for us (see Proverbs 25:2).
If we will stay in a place of continual prayer and fellowship with the Lord, He can speak to us throughout the day. He is the Creator, and He speaks in the most creative and interesting ways that keep our relationship with Him fresh and exciting. Recently, He spoke to me through the movie Ford v Ferrari. In the movie, the famous race driver for Ford was not trying to run the perfect race, just the perfect lap. However, because he did this every lap, he broke the record for the fastest lap and led the Ford team to a historic victory.
Inspired by this, I spent a month seeking to identify what a perfect day for me would look like. Then, instead of just seeking to do the Lord’s will for my life, I resolved to pursue the perfect day every day. I still haven’t had what I would consider the “perfect day,” but this immediately impacted each day of my life—almost like being born again, again!
Among those elements I considered to make up a perfect day for me, I was already doing them all, but sporadically, casually, and superficially. However, when I began focusing on them each day, the difference this made in my life was substantial. Immediately, I perceived the relatively few years I probably had left in my life could be far more fruitful than the seventy-three years I had already lived.
Sometimes our personal goals are too unclear and undefined. Hebrews 4:7 declares, “He again fixes a certain day, ‘Today,’ saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, ‘today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.’” Here the Lord did not address a week, a month, or a year, but a day, “today,” for dealing with our hearts. When we make resolutions for an entire year, it is easy to defer them, but when our resolve becomes daily, we are much more likely to do them. The saying is true, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” So is every day; let’s live every day to the fullest.
© 2023 Rick Joyner. All Rights Reserved.
