Jesus Over Everything: Uncomplicating the Daily Struggle to Put Jesus First

by Lisa Whittle

Jesus does us the biggest favor when He puts a stop to things that are secretly chipping away at us.

It was about what I had chosen over God sometimes to numb myself or give myself a high when I was sad or happy or bored.

I felt God becoming more important to me than my momentary need to fix myself with something that will never fix me.

I can’t choose my way over Jesus’ way anymore because I can’t afford the scars. A Jesus-over-everything lifestyle is a Jesus-take-over-me-and-my-lifestyle so I don’t ruin my one precious life. But even more than that, it’s the understanding that the priority of Jesus brings order to the chaos of our lives, a job only God is big enough to do.

We beg God for help in the midst of a life with a mixed-up order of priorities and wonder why things aren’t working; yet when we put Him over all the things on our list, myriad complications fall away.

We aren’t pain-free, struggle-free, problem-free (John 16:33).

Don’t assume that because your life isn’t working, you need a whole different life. Sometimes you need God to finally run yours.

Despite our temporary feelings, there are three things that make our lives not work in the long term: 1. too many options 2. getting away with something that is not good for us 3. trying to handle everything ourselves

But eventually we will let ourselves down and lose confidence in our abilities—a place where God can do some of His greatest work. And in that place we will desperately want someone to take care of us. We like options until they make life too complicated. We like doing what we want until our choices make matters worse. We like our independence until we need to be taken care of. Too often, when our lives no longer work, we assume it is time to get new lives: pull out of marriages, leave churches, search for quick fixes to solve money issues, cut friendships, move somewhere else, drop a project to start a new one. And at the end of the day, we are still left with the hole within. What we actually need is for God to adjust the lives we have by taking over and running things.

Giving up priority in your life to Jesus may not be your typical solution, but I can assure you, it’s the key to making your life work.

Some of us like the idea of control more than others (ahem), but we all like it, and because we are so easily enticed by our desires, it takes a pile of mess of our own doing to show us tangible proof of why us being boss doesn’t work. Without the immeasurable gift of sovereignty, we are left with a serious case of being right in our own eyes—something I suspect we will die praying to overcome.

We can’t be first because if we were, we would make the wrong decision, we would give someone bad advice, we would quit before we should, we would hang on to something we need to let go of and vice versa, we wouldn’t be able to keep the world spinning, we wouldn’t be able to prevent tragedies or pull off redemption, and we couldn’t save anyone from their sins. These are just a few of the reasons we can’t be first.

So then we are left to pray away this stubborn, misguided will that feeds us the ridiculous notion that we can do this thing better than God. We have skinned our knees so blessed many times, and we still think we won’t fall down over this or that. Our decisions have been flighty and error filled, and we remain convinced we have the whole thing figured out. God holds none of this against us. But He’d like us to open...

From Paul’s words to our eyes, minds, and hearts today. When we are tempted to take back authority in our lives, Jesus first. When we forget how much we have made a mess running things, Jesus first. When we start to think we might just want to take another crack at it and see how it goes, Jesus first. Right now, • look at all Jesus has done for you. • remember who He is. • decide if that is worth making Him number one.

I do know this: we say many of the same things: I apologize for everything. I overbook myself because I don’t want to let people down. I get in my head and go down so many negative mental roads. I constantly feel the need to explain myself.

We long for that simpler life, where none of this is so complicated—people say what they mean, we take each other at face value, we don’t feel such pressure to please or keep up, we leave room for mistakes, we don’t feel used, and we stay committed at all costs.

If we only thought this way

We’ve been living in a deadly land of overs for a while, many of us, trying to make life work by forcing empty, self-serving production. Putting Jesus first is choosing the better land, handing us back our sanity.

Before Jesus can be over everything, we have to allow Him to remove from our lives what has thus far only complicated them.

Apologies are good vital signs in a healthy relationship. Wisdom is not about never apologizing. It’s about sincere apology when it’s right.

The body of Christ needs Him in charge of our interactions to cover our silences and disappointments and bring understanding versus judgment—the way of unity.

My shopping issues are a classic case of overindulging. But so are other things we like to ignore in a me-over-Jesus life. Eating. TV. Drinking. Social media. Putting too much on our calendars. The danger is we’re numb to this list. We’ve stopped being shocked by it, along with a lot of other things. Overindulgence is so common it doesn’t seem like that big of a problem. Accountability seems antiquated and silly. Even little old ladies have their faces buried in a phone at the doctor’s office now, so how can something that everyone does truly be harmful?

Real over pretty. Love over judgment. Holiness over freedom. Service over spotlight. Steady over hype. Wisdom over knowledge. Honesty over hiding. Commitment over mood.

Joshua 24:15: “Choose today whom you will serve,” and Joshua’s own determination: “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (ESV).

“But the people answered Joshua, saying, ‘We are determined to serve the LORD’” (v. 21).5 And with that, Joshua tells them the way. “‘All right then,’ Joshua said, ‘destroy the idols among you, and turn your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel’” (v. 23). It is where we, too, begin.

Jesus may not have been physically beautiful, but there is none more beautiful we could ever know. In His example we find our own guidebook for the attractive life we seek.

• He had beautiful strength. − He was tempted and didn’t give in to it: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15 NKJV). • He had beautiful self-control. − He denied himself in order to do what God wanted: “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42 NKJV). • He had a beautiful witness. − He developed a respectable reputation: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52 NKJV).

He was beautifully gracious. − He was humble: Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:5–8 NKJV)

• He was beautifully bold. − He took His appointment seriously and spoke the truth: For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle—I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. (1 Timothy 2:5–7 NKJV)

• He was beautifully honest. − He cried and was real before God: Who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. (Hebrews 5:7–8 NKJV)

• He was a beautiful leader. − He was the ultimate example and went first: This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6:19–20 NKJV)

• He was beautifully empathetic and kind. − He could have pulled rank, but he didn’t: Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. (Hebrews 2:14–17 NKJV)

we are called to walk in His example.

“Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. (1 Peter 2:21–24 NKJV)

The real us, who God made us to be—flaws, mistakes, bruises and all—is a mighty force for people to come to know Him. Choosing real is choosing Jesus because it’s trusting His creative instincts that we were made good.

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (vv. 13–14 NIV).

“I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.”—Ezekiel 11:19 [esv]

I am safe with Jesus.

1. We judge when we’re afraid. Ignorance and fear are the leading reasons we judge people—fear being at the very top. It drives our inability to love people like Jesus loves, and people feel it. We fear their sin will rub off on us as if by some sin transfer system that doesn’t exist. We don’t want their “leprosy,” the very thing Jesus made a beeline to heal. We judge what we do not know, what we have not experienced, what we do not understand because we fear not being able to handle those realities. We don’t want to associate with a tax collector even though we are tax collectors ourselves. Fear keeps us from being able to see people for who they really are and give them the benefit of the doubt for who they can become through the power of Jesus Christ.

2. We justify judgment with our Bible. This is the worst misuse of the Word, but I dare say we’ve all done it a time or two. The most dangerous person in the world is the one who is schooled in Scripture and slices people with it. The Bible sharply convicts as a sword, but it is never to be used as a weapon. In human hands with a human motive, it can be deadly and detrimental to the actual gospel. Even the most astute theologians do not agree on all things, and even as we use the Bible as our personal compass, we stay in accountability with Jesus as we run our individual races. Jesus is clear on judging in Matthew 7:1–5, yet even in that clear stance, only God knows the hearts and minds of people and where we personally fall. It’s true that Jesus did say we can draw conclusions from the fruit we see (vv. 15–20), but putting ourselves in the judge’s seat reserved for God is not a wise plan. He is fully capable of the job many of us try to do on a daily basis.

3. We justify judgment by making lump assessments. We have some grand excuses for our prejudice when we feel justified in judging a group of people based on the behavior of someone who is in that group. A lot of us have stopped going to church because one person in the church deeply hurt us or a minister in the news behaved poorly, and now we judge all the leaders and churches the same. We have formed feelings and opinions about a person of another race because someone else of that race personally hurt us, hurt people we know and love, or publicly behaved badly. Lumping everyone in a category instead of considering each person as she comes into our lives, finding out who she is and what her story is, and seeing who God made her to be is damaging and unfruitful. (One of my favorite things about God is how He died for the collective of us yet created us, loves us, knows us, gifted us, cares for us all, and saves us individually.) If we want to lump people into any category, let it be lumping them into the category of people we deeply love. I heard recently that a church put the following statement on their sign outside, and it’s such a powerful word: “Just love everyone. I will sort them all out later.—God.” I can’t give you a specific chapter and verse in the Bible that says that exactly, but I would suggest that the Word says that very thing throughout, loud and clear. I’m just grateful the sorting out isn’t any of our roles down here. We’d all be in ...

4. We judge because we recognize in others what we don’t like in ourselves. So often you can find us being the hardest on someone we see reflected in ourselves. We feel put off by the things we recognize as places we need to work on, sins we struggle with, characteristics we deeply wish away. It’s easier for us to judge people than to deal with the fact that we are disappointed in ourselves or to work on getting better. The way we judge others for the things we recognize in us is a sign that we are struggling to love ourselves, first, which makes it impossible for us to love another.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. . . . Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.2

Love is stronger than fear, betrayal, anger, resentment, doubt, disappointment, and, yes, judgment because we chose God and God is love—the ultimate love.

It is the 1 John 4:4 principle: “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome . . . because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (NIV).

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Love can be silent—Jesus often was.

“For God has not called us to impurity but to live in holiness” (1 Thessalonians 4:7 CSB).

1. Choose sobriety from anything that you use to escape reality or to numb yourself. 2. Refrain from doing anything that takes you back or keeps you mentally in a sinful state of mind. 3. Refuse to participate in anything that goes against the Word. 4. Give up anything that takes time away from a pursuit of holy living. 5. Don’t settle for anything that mimics or manufactures true joy and fulfillment from Jesus.

You do what Jesus tells you to do and don’t make excuses for it. Even when the topic is unpopular. And I’ll do the same. For both of us, the pursuit of absolute holiness is the goal.

‘It is through faith that a righteous person has life.’ This way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says, ‘It is through obeying the law that a person has life’” Galatians 3:11–12.)