So often we run around in our own religious Christian life, doing this and that at the church, trying to help people; but we don’t spend any time alone with God.
It’s like we are partly lying to the people. We tell them how important Jesus is in our lives, yet He really isn’t occupying that number one spot. Sometimes our God is religion and church, not Him.
God doesn’t want your duty to be number one in your life. He wants to be number one. Don’t push Him over to the side and do all the work for God without taking time to worship Him. If you do, you are lying – to yourself and to Him.
You can work for Jesus 15 hours a day, but if you don’t take the time to spend even 15 or 20 minutes in private worship of Him, you are lying to yourself. He really isn’t your number one God.
We are suppose to worship the Lord with all our hearts. Luke 10:27 says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.”
Many times we miss God by getting our lives so involved in going to church and working for Jesus that we grieve His heart. I know we are going to be judged on the Day of Judgment by the works we do; but many people are trying to promote the Kingdom of God in the wrong way. They do it from an intellectual standpoint and from a labor standpoint. God is not pleased with that.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers
Norvel Hayes is a successful businessman, internationally renowned Bible teacher, and founder of several Christian ministries in the United States and abroad.
Brother Hayes founded New Life Bible College, located in Cleveland, Tennessee, in 1977. New Life Bible Church grew out of the Bible schools\' chapel services. Among its many other outreachs, the church ministers God\'s Word, and hot meals daily to the poor through the New Life Soup Kitchen.
Brother Hayes is also the founder and president of New Life Maternity Home, a ministry dedicated to the spiritual, physical, and financial needs of young girls during pregnancy; Campus Challenge, an evangelistic outreach on college campuses across America; Street Reach, a ministry dedicated to runaway teens located in Daytona Beach, Florida; and Children\'s Home, an orphanage home and education center located in India.
Known internationally for his dynamic exposition of the Word of God, Brother Hayes spends most of his time teaching and ministering God\'s deliverance and healing power in churches, college classrooms, conventions, and seminars around the world.