“What church are you going to now Stephen?”

“Aw well, I’m not going anywhere. Got to take the boys to football on Sundays, you know!”

My heart sank. This man had been one of the most promising boys in our Bible Class fifteen years earlier. Now when he had a family of his own that he should have been bringing up in Biblical knowledge and standards, all he could think about was teaching them football!

He was allowing the world’s standards to mould his thinking by putting sport first and church last. What a missed opportunity to teach his family by example, of the things of God!

We need to stop and think of where we put the things of God on our own life….do we allow other things and interests to crowd out meeting with God’s people? Do we only go to church when there is nothing better on? Are we teaching our children that church is only an option?

Let’s make sure we put first things first in our lives remembering the verse in the Bible that says, “Blessed (or happy) is the person who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law he meditates day and night”  (Psalm 1:1-2).