Make God First, Last, and Best in Everything

Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. 1 Corinthians 4:1, 2.
Those who act a part in the work of God do good only because God is behind them, doing the work. Shall we then praise men, and give thanks to man, neglecting to recognize God? If we do, God will not cooperate with us. When man puts himself first and God second, he shows that he is losing his wisdom and righteousness. All that is ever done toward restoring the moral image of God in man is done because God is the efficiency of the worker. Christ declares in His prayer to His Father, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).
Let every steward understand that as he strives to advance the glory of God in our world, whether he stands before infidels or princes, he is to make God first and last and best in everything. The true Christian will realize that he has a right to his name only as he uplifts Christ with a steady, persevering, and ever-increasing force….
“It is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2). When we are faithful in making God known, our impulses will be under divine supervision, and we shall make steady growth, spiritually and intellectually. But when men enter into a confederacy to exalt men, and have little to say of God, they are weakness itself. God will leave those who do not recognize Him in every effort made to uplift humanity. It is Christ’s power alone that can restore broken-down human machinery. Everywhere and in every place let those around you see that you give God the glory. Let man be put in the shade, let God appear as the only hope of the human race. Every man must rivet his building to the eternal Rock, Christ Jesus; then it will stand amid storm and tempest.
God prepares the mind to recognize Him who alone can help the striving, struggling soul. He will educate all who stand under His banner to be faithful stewards of His grace. Man cannot show greater weakness than by thinking he will find more acceptance in the sight of men if he leaves God out of his assemblies. God must stand the highest. The wisdom of the greatest man is foolishness with Him.
God has given to man immortal principles, to which every human power must one day bow. We have truth that has been given us in trust. The precious beams of this light are not to be hid under a bushel, but are to give light to all that are in the house.—Manuscript 21, March 8, 1899, “Give Unto the Lord the Glory Due Unto His Name.”
The Upward Look p.81
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Prayer Requests
—-Please pray for my sister, Betty. J
—-Please pray for my daughter. She is halfway through chemo and collapsed. She is in a hospital on the other side of the country and is having testing. I haven’t been able to talk with her. Vicki
—-I’m asking for my mother. She is really sick which wat i think is pneumonia. She’s so sick. I’m trying to get her to let me call an ambulance and she wont. PLEASE will you pray for healing and comfort. Her name is Joyce. Heather
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Dear Friends,
The other day when they kept tipping back in their chairs, Eileen was telling Emma and Peter about a time when she was 7 and went to a one-room, multi-grade school in Alabama. She remembers how one of the older boys in the class always seemed to be in trouble. He was not a bad boy, he just liked to make the other students laugh. He also had the bad habit of tipping back on the back legs of his chair. No matter how many times the teacher told him to keep all four chair legs on the floor, he would always tip back on just two. She told him that someday he would fall backwards, but he did not take her warning. He thought he was well capable of keeping that chair balanced and that she was being mean to him.
There is an old saying that goes, “One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel.” So it was in that school. This boy’s influence was beginning to show in the way the other children obeyed the teacher as well. Day by day, they became more disobedient. Eileen’s poor teacher just didn’t know what more she could do to bring the class back into line.
One day, the boy learned a valuable lesson. Somehow he tipped back just a little too far and fell backwards with a thud. He hit the back of his head very hard, yet while he was falling, he somehow hit his chin on the desk and split it open. Hurt and humiliated, he was a little more subdued after that. Seeing that the teacher’s warning was valid, the rest of the class began to respect and obey their teacher as they should.
So it is that by our influence we can bring others to Chist or turn them away from Him. Paul says, “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” Gal 5:9 Again, he used this illustration in a situation that was happening in the Corinthian church. They had begun to believe through the influence of one of their members that an acceptance of and belief in Jesus as their saviour gave them the license to do disobey the Commandments. Shocked that they should get this idea, Paul wrote, “It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” 1 Cor 5:1-13
May our influence always be on the side of right is my prayer.
Rose