Home Pastors Pastor How To's Steven Furtick: Don't Put Jesus First This Year—Seriously

Steven Furtick: Don't Put Jesus First This Year—Seriously

I have one piece of advice for you as we start out this New Year:

Don’t put Jesus first this year.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Before you label me a heretic, let me explain.

I imagine many of you are going through a similar process as me right now of setting and resetting your priorities.

Personally, I love this time of year. I’m a very goal-oriented individual, and I’ve found reprioritizing and recalibrating your life is an indispensable activity if you really want to actualize your potential.

And here’s what it usually looks like: We start by putting Jesus at the top. Then family. Then maybe career. And so on. 

So our priorities look something like this:

1. Jesus/God
2. Family
3. Career

Looks good.

However, I’ve found this isn’t very effective when you get down to the grind of everyday life.

For example, what does it even mean to put Jesus before my family? Do I ignore my family to spend more time with Jesus? Or with your career, do you stop working to put Jesus first?

Don’t Miss

The essential problem with this approach is it segregates the different priorities of life.

You end up removing Jesus from where you spend the majority of your time and putting Him on an island by Himself. The biggest island maybe, but an island nonetheless.

I don’t think this is the way it was ever supposed to work. Colossians 1:15-20 repeatedly tells us Jesus is first before and over everything. But it also says all things were created through and for Him. That in Him all things hold together. That the goal of the cross was to reconcile all things to Himself.