Galatians 1:10; "Do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For yet if I please men, I should not be the servant of Christ."

I have never written a Biblical Gem without choosing a scripture for the basic thoughts to follow, and when I began to search for a scripture to write this message, the above verse is the first thing I saw when I opened my Bible. I can only hope it will influence your thinking like it did mine.

From early this morning I was planning in my mind just how I could help a friend who had asked me for information concerning a problem that developed in his life. It was hard for me to get that out of my mind because I wanted to help him. But this scripture instantly let me see, how Almighty God and my precious Savior Christ should always have priority over all else in my ability and time. I began to see how I could tell God and Christ I loved them and wanted to serve them; but how a desire to help a fellow man could crowd out my true desire to serve them. So now it is with a feeling of shame that I am writing this in a sincere hope that it might help others to see how God and Christ should always have first place with greatest respect and praise that is long over due them. If we pause and think about this, we will have to see that even too many devoted Christians will need to repent for letting worldly decisions consume so much of their time and their intentions.

My sincere hope is that many will give more actual thinking how to put God and Christ first in all their future intentions. And let me put myself at the head of that list. It will receive my best effort.