Mark 8.33 condemns looking at life only from a human point of view.
God commands people to love Him most and first and to place His priorities above our own. Those seem like reasonable requests from God because if He does indeed exist could God demand anything less from His creation?
When God lived among us as the Man, Jesus, He called one of His friends the absolutely worst name He could use for not understanding these priorities. Jesus called Peter Satan for looking at life from only a human point of view.
As humans it is our propensity to view life from our perspective but if we are first God’s children then we must look at life first from God’s perspective.
Living a God first life kills the selfishness of a me first life and allows us to stay focused on God’s work and God’s ways above our own.
So what does a God first life look like?
It begins with knowing Who God really is and having a personal relationship with Him.
People don’t know God personally because we are born broken off from God and must be reconciled back to God for the relationship to be restored. God’s appearing to us in Jesus is His provision for restoring our relationship with God so we must first come to Jesus to be forgiven, healed and made right with God.
Next, we must make the work of God our first concern for the use of our time, talent and treasure.
This means whatever our vocation, from mother to president, we do all we can with our relationships to move people closer to God through Jesus the Reconciler.
