So last night I got to speak at my college group and I felt like the message was a challenging one. I covered Luke 9:51-62, what some bibles title this portion of scripture as the cost of following Jesus. I was kind of worried that this topic might have been pretty harsh and would really challenge us. In this portion of scripture two men tell Jesus that they will follow him and one man is asked by Jesus to follow him. Jesus gives each man a unique response that is pretty straight foward. He wanted each man to make following him their number one priority and it starts as soon as they said they would follow him. But they all make excuses or put something else in front of Jesus. We don't know if these guys followed him or what exactly happend to them.  I believe that the main point of these scriptures is that we need to put Jesus first no matter what, and that nothing should ever be placed above him.
Now I'm not sure about you, but this is something that I'm working on, putting God first. Now in these scriptures God gives what we might think as harsh responses to these guys and that might bum you out. When I first read this I thought that if God wasn't first and the most important thing in my life then he would just turn his back on me and just ignore me. But that's not the case. That's actually what I want to encourage you with. Even though God deserves to be number one, we are humans, we mess up. The great thing about that is God knows that and understands that. But lets clear something up, that doesn't mean that we don't try our hardest to put him #1. I want to encourage you by saying that God won't turn his back on you, God loves you that much. The greatest thing about our God is he's a God of forgiveness. Our God is a God of 2nd,3rd,4th,5th......chances. If you haven't been putting Jesus as the number one thing in your life don't beat yourself up. Repent of your ways and start making him #1. Don't allow yourself to buy into the lies that would tell you that you missed out on this, or that you don't deserve God to take you back. Here's something to help with that thought, NO ONE DESERVES FOR GOD TO TAKE US BACK, but that's the great thing. He loves us that much that he does. So let's not waist anymore time letting others things in our life be in the place of God. Let's make him #1!
So my prayer for us today is that we put God first. I pray that we would remove whatever it is that has been placed above Jesus and that we would ask for forgiveness and repent of our ways. I pray for strength and faith for us to let God be God.