Thank you for your excellent question. It is easy for us believers to claim to put God first in our lives, but are we actually doing it? The answer is not to try harder with our own strength to put God first, for we will fail every time. We have an old nature (sometimes called the flesh in the Bible) that loves to sin and a new nature that loves to please the Lord. We read in Romans 7:18-19, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”

Then we read in Romans 7:22-25, “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”

The answer to your question is found in verse 24. Jesus Christ our Lord gives us the strength to put God first. Begin each day with prayer and the reading of God’s Word. This feeds your new nature that you received when you repented of your sins and trusted Christ as your Savior. This makes your new nature stronger so that you will put God first in your life. A good prayer that we can pray is found in Psalm 139:23-24. “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

We read in Colossians 1:18, “And He is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence.” The Lord knows our hearts and He is able to give us a desire to give Him the first place in our lives. We also read in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Pray to the Lord each morning for help to do everything that day to glorify God.

Keep in mind that we have a kind and merciful God. We read in Psalm 103:13-17, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children.” How wonderful it is to know that God loves us so much that He not only saves us but also empowers us to put Him first in our lives.  (DJ)  (643.5)