"Loving God First"

"I was also upright before Him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity." (Psalms 18:23) When it come to the first and greatest commandment, there is one thing about that commandment that make it the greatest; because if we truly are loving God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength, then everything else is easy to do! As you start reading 1 John, he starts out with an introduction to the manifestation of God's love and how it is that we must abide in that love. After that quick introduction, John gets to the point of living out that love, as he says in 1 John 2:1 & 2, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins: and not ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world". The reason that John can say with all boldness those four little words, "that ye sin not", is because of what must happen to us once we are engulfed in God's love: we are exposed to love in such a way, that His love matters more than anything else; making our love for Him stronger and stronger, not only as time goes on, but also the more we are able to experience His love in our lives. David is saying something here that can only be said by someone who is abiding in the Love of God. For someone to say that they are "upright before Him", then that person must have been made upright, because upright means complete or whole; unimpaired and innocent. There is only one way that we are innocent before God, and that is by being washed in the blood of Jesus Christ! We must remember that David was looking towards the cross, and believing in that which was to come; the only real difference between his belief and ours, is what side of the cross that we are looking at, because the faith required to believe is pretty much the same. However; the second part of this verse is the part that requires our strength, as in "all of our strength". This is the part that says, "and I have kept myself from mine iniquity"; which is another way of saying I have kept abiding in God's love. It is the word "kept" that give a strong meaning to what David is saying, because it means to have charge of, or to watch and wait for; much like you would do if you were guarding something very important. This is also the point the John is making in 1 John 2:1 & 2; in that we are governed by the Love of God to keep free of sin, yet, if we do sin, then we have that same Love which is available to take that sin away; but we must ask for it!!! That is where we lack the strength in many situations; not that we might stumble and sin, because we all will sin; but because we either think that God will not forgive us, or we are too proud to ask for His forgiveness. We must love God more than everything else; including our own shame and our pride. Let nothing get between Him and us, because we can not abide in Him if we are not attached to Him... "Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen." (1 John 5:21)