Gracious Father, with an overwhelmingly thankful heart, we consider it an extraordinary blessing to be counted as Christ followers. Once spiritually dead, you raised us to life through Christ’s redemptive work, creating an incredible relational connection with you, the one true source of life-everlasting and meaning. How great a love you have given us for our earthly father, mother, wife, and children as well as for our very own lives. Yet, as precious as these are and as life-giving as they seem, they pale in comparison to the real source of life only found in Christ.
Lord Jesus, it is through knowing you that we truly experience the relationship that quenches our thirsty hearts and provides true intimacy, identity, and influence. Everything else, even precious relationships with family and life itself, cannot compare. If any other relationship or anything is depended upon as our primary source of significance and hope, as we are apt to depend on, it will serve as a mere idol leaving us thirsty and barren.
May we seek and experience Christ as our first love. That first love blesses us with hope, wholeness, peace, strength, direction, and confidence. May the overflow of true identity in Christ penetrate every relationship for your glory.
In Christ,
Blessings!
Luke 14:26
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. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.