The Gold Mine
by Mike Rule

Because our human tendency is to chase after the secondary things of God without first having the primary things in place, God has called us to a ministry of re-establishing His order for life. We were teaching this at a conference one night when someone asked about the place of obedience in the Christian life. My response was a simple question: "The greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. How are you doing on that?" He responded by saying that he wasn’t doing too well.

We chase after the nuggets of God while missing the gold mine. If you have the gold mine, you get the nuggets. When the primary things of God are in place in your life all the secondary things fall into place. "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you." (Matthew 6:33) This is what Jesus meant when He said the Law and the prophets were summed up in the greatest command -- Love God (Matthew 22:37). Let’s put this in perspective. A person can’t love God and hate his brother. (1 John 4:20) There are people I don’t like a whole lot. The Lord has shown me that my love for them indicates how much (or little) I actually love Him. When I come to the place of seeing I really don’t love God and others, then I see that I need a life that does. This is the Life of Christ. When I see I can’t, He says, "I can!"

Jesus loves His Father and Jesus dwells in me. Christ is my life! The Christian life is so simple, but it gets muddied with our misunderstandings and we end up chasing after the secondary things of God. I could personally never find victory and Life until I was willing to embrace the fact that Jesus is all I need. The whole point of all God’s commands is to show us we can’t. It reveals how desperately we need Jesus.