God Wants to Be Our Everything - The Crosswalk Devotional - June 16

God Wants to Be Our Everything
By Lynette Kittle

“‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,’”—Matthew 22:36-37

In the 1970s, singer Andy Gibb had a hit song titled “I Just Want to Be Your Everything.” Sadly, his song is about how many individuals feel about their relationships with spouses, children, and friends. They long to be center stage and have all the attention focused on them. But God hasn’t called us to be someone’s everything because that’s His place. When He created marriage, parenthood, and friendship, He didn’t design them to replace Him in our lives but to provide human companionship on earth. When God created Eve, He didn’t fashion her to replace His position in Adam’s life but to be a helpmate. Genesis 2:18 explains, “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Loving God Helps Us Love More Rightly
Whenever we have to pour so much time and attention into someone else, it often gradually turns us away from God. On the other hand, when we give Him our all, it benefits those we love more than giving our all to them. It doesn’t mean we ignore our spouses, family, and friends, but we make a conscious effort to give God our first and best time and attention.

When we love God the most, it doesn’t take away from everyone else but works within us to love others more rightly. Focusing on Him transforms us from the inside out, deepening our affections and relationships with Him and those we love. When God is our focus, He gives us the ability to reach out to others with His love, peace, patience, kindness, and so much more.

God Understands
It’s easy to love everyone above God, even if we don’t think we are. How many times have we put our friends and family before spending time with Him, thinking God will understand because He calls us to love others, and we feel He wouldn’t want us to disappoint them? True, God does understand, but not in the way we think. He sees us put others before Him. Exodus 34:14 describes God in a way difficult for some of us to understand because we are told being jealous is wrong. But God is perfect, without sin, so there is a righteous type of jealousy.

“Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”

In wanting to love our families well, some of us have made them an idol we put before God. Jesus explains in Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be My disciple.”This means our love for Him must come above our love for our family and ourselves, too. God doesn’t just want to be a part of our lives but truly wants to be everything to us. Only when we give Him first place in our lives will we start to grasp how loving Him most, with our whole heart, meets our deepest need to be loved and gives us the ability to love those around us.

Intersecting Faith & Life:
Have you ever put your family or another person before God in your life, wanting to please them most and focusing all your attention on them, making them number one in your life and your top priority? If you’ve been trying to be everything to your spouse, children, and friends, ask God to help you see He hasn’t called you to take His place in their lives but rather to point them to love Him. Or, have you expected your spouse or friends to please you above pleasing God? If so, confess your wrong desires, asking God to help you look to Him to be everything to you.

Further Reading:
Loving God Wholeheartedly

Lynette Kittle is married with four daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV.