The First Principle

“It was by faith that Enoch was taken up to heaven without dying—“he disappeared, because God took him.” For before he was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God.” Heb.11:5

God is interested in the order in which you do what you do. God is interested in what you give first place to. I wake up in the morning, hit the floor, and worship God – that is faith. Putting God first is faith; you are saying there is God and acknowledging that there is a God. For instance when you move from location A to location B, what do you do first? It is called the First Principle. What you do first shows you immediately where you need to begin to work on your faith. It is that simple. Not putting God first it shows our lack of faith. For example, you are sitting in front of a mouth-watering dish and for some of us we are already gone half way with the meal when we remember we have not prayed. And we say to God, please bless the food that I swallowed after all you are God and bless what is still on the plate. A boy and his mother just got back from the market and had just finished off loading the purchase into the kitchen when the boy stops his mother and says here is the rice, the oil, the meat, the and tomato. Everything is here so let us pray over these things once and for all now. Let us settle this prayer business once and for all.

What is Enoch’s example? Enoch’s example is walk with God. To walk with God we have to be more interested in His heart than His hands. To walk with God we have to be more interested in who He is than what He has. Unless your Christianity goes beyond the God of breakthroughs you cannot walk with God. Until your Christianity goes beyond ‘what God can do for me’ you would not be able to walk with God. But because you will walk with God, your Christianity must go beyond breakthroughs. Your Christianity must go beyond what God can do to who God is. Faith is walking with God. Faith is saying I love You for who You are. I have asked You to do ABC and I have not seen ABC happen but You are God, I love You and I will follow You in spite of the fact that I have not seen ABC. “All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth” Heb.11:13. How do you die believing? You die believing when your faith goes beyond God’s hands to God’s heart. When your faith goes beyond what God can do for you to who God is to you. When your faith transcends what you can get to who He really is that is when you can begin to walk with God. That is when you have entered into a relationship with God.

Prayer [song]: Show me Your way, that I may walk with You. Show me Your way, I put my trust in You. The cry of my heart is to love You Lord. To live with the touch of Your hand, stronger each day, show me Your way. Amen