The Center of Love: Why God Must Be the Center of Our Lives

There is a question that often arises in the hearts of many—sometimes spoken aloud, and other times pondered in the quiet recesses of the soul: “Why should God be the center of my life?” It is a fair question in a world filled with distractions, competing loyalties, and endless demands on our attention. In a society that urges us to center our lives around careers, ambitions, relationships, or even personal fulfillment, the idea of placing God at the very core of our existence may seem unusual or even impractical.

But I would answer this question with a statement that turns the perspective completely around: God should be the center of our lives because He made us the center of His. Before we ever knew Him, before we were formed in the womb, and before a single breath escaped our lungs, God had already set His divine affection upon us. As Scripture proclaims in 1 John 4:19 (NLT), “We love each other because he loved us first.” The very ability to love—to love God, to love one another—is a reflection of His initiating love toward us.

God’s love is not abstract or philosophical. It is deeply personal and sacrificial. Jesus Himself affirmed this when He declared, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16–17, NLT). That is not the love of a distant deity. That is the intimate and selfless love of a Father who places His children at the center of His redemptive plan.

Thus, when we speak of the first pillar of a God-centered life—the importance of keeping God as the focus of everything—we are not advocating for a cold religious ritual. We are responding to a holy relationship that God Himself initiated. It is not about obligation, but about devotion. It is not about performance, but about presence—His presence in every part of our lives.

As we continue, we will explore how God’s love came first, what it cost Him, and how our response must be a life centered wholly upon Him. Let us now turn our hearts to that foundation of divine love that beckons us closer.

When we reflect upon the nature of our love for God, it is essential to understand that it is always a response, never an initiation. The Apostle John declares this foundational truth plainly in 1 John 4:19 (NLT): “We love each other because he loved us first.” That simple, powerful statement anchors our faith and compels us to reorder our lives around the One who reached for us before we could even grasp His name.

But the beauty of God's initiating love does not begin in the New Testament. It stretches all the way back to the dawn of time, in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 1:26–27 (NLT), we read, “Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.’ … So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Unlike any other creature, mankind was crafted in the image and likeness of the Almighty. This was not an afterthought or an incidental detail of creation—this was the very heart of His design. He did not merely speak us into being as He did with the stars and seas. When it came to humanity, He formed us with divine intention and intimacy.

Even more profoundly, Genesis 2:7 (NLT) tells us, “Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.” Consider the tenderness in that moment. The Creator stooped down to shape us from the dust, and then He did something He did not do for any other living creature—He breathed His own breath into us. His breath became our life. That divine breath still animates us today, reminding us with every inhale that we were made by Him and for Him.

Such love and intentionality cannot be ignored. From the very beginning, God made us the center of His creative focus. He made us in His image. He gave us His breath. And when we strayed, He gave us His Son. Everything about God's relationship with humanity reveals a love that precedes us, surrounds us, and calls us home.

So when we ask why God should be at the center of our lives, the answer is etched in both dust and divinity. He formed us. He breathed into us. He loved us first. The only fitting response is to return that love with our whole hearts, placing Him at the center of all we are and all we do.

If the story of God’s love began in the Garden with His breath in our lungs, it reached its glorious climax at Calvary with His Son upon the cross. In John 3:16–17 (NLT), we find a familiar passage—so often quoted that its power can be overlooked if we are not careful. Yet within these two verses lies the deepest truth our hearts can ever embrace: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.”

Let us pause and truly absorb what this means. God did not merely say He loves us—He demonstrated it by giving us what was most precious to Him: His only begotten Son. This was not a gift offered out of abundance, but a sacrifice offered from the deepest place of love. When the Father sent Jesus into the world, He did not do so to condemn us, though He had every right to. Instead, He came to rescue us from the very judgment our sin had earned.

We must see the cross not as a symbol of guilt, but as the purest expression of divine love. It is there that love was nailed to wood and crowned with thorns. It is there that the same God who breathed life into Adam willingly gave up His own breath so that we might live eternally. That is what it means when we say that God gave His best.

This sacrificial act reveals God's unrelenting pursuit of our hearts. He did not abandon His creation when sin entered the world. He did not give up when we rejected Him time and again. Instead, He gave Himself. The God who formed us from the dust and filled us with His breath also bore the weight of our sin and carried it to Golgotha.

If God made us the center of His creation and then gave His very best to redeem us, how can we possibly relegate Him to the margins of our lives? How can we keep Him at arm’s length when His arms were stretched wide in love for us?

This is the heart of the Gospel and the heart of the first pillar—that our lives should revolve entirely around God because He has already revolved His divine plan around us. We are the objects of His grace, the recipients of His mercy, and the reason He endured the cross. This love is not casual—it is covenantal. It does not ask for a portion of our attention—it demands our entire allegiance.

When we understand what God gave, how can we not give Him everything in return?

When we are confronted with the depth of God’s love—formed in creation, confirmed in Christ, and poured out through the cross—there can only be one appropriate response: to place Him at the very center of our lives. This is not merely an emotional reaction to divine affection; it is an act of sacred devotion. We align our lives around God not out of ritual or fear, but out of reverence and love.

To make God the center of our lives means that every decision, every ambition, every relationship, and every moment is filtered through His presence and guided by His Word. It is the daily act of surrender—rising each morning with the prayer, “Lord, not my will, but Yours be done.” It is the deliberate reorientation of our hearts away from self and toward the Savior who gave Himself for us.

When God is at the center, love becomes our motivation, not obligation. We no longer seek to earn His approval, for we already have it in Christ. Instead, we live in joyful response to His grace. We serve not because we must, but because we long to. We give not because we are compelled, but because we are grateful. We forgive, not because it is easy, but because we have been forgiven.

This is the essence of true worship—not confined to a church building or a Sunday morning service, but lived out in the rhythms of ordinary life. Worship is not just what we sing with our lips, but how we live with our lives. As Romans 12:1 reminds us, our bodies and choices are to be presented as “a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.”

God must be the center of our lives because He is the source of our life. From His breath in Eden to the blood of Calvary, everything we are is owed to Him. When we drift from that center, we lose our sense of direction, purpose, and peace. But when we return to Him—when we reestablish Him as the axis upon which our entire existence turns—we find not only our identity but our eternal hope.

The first pillar calls us to this very life: a God-centered life. It is not a one-time decision but a daily commitment, a moment-by-moment choice to let Him lead, guide, and shape every part of who we are. It is in keeping God at the center that we become most fully alive, most deeply rooted, and most richly blessed.

Beloved, we have walked through the story of love—beginning in the Garden, where God shaped man with His hands and gave him breath with His own Spirit; moving through the pages of Scripture, where God's love was revealed time and time again; and culminating on a rugged cross, where He gave His one and only Son so that we might have life. We are not spectators to this love—we are its beneficiaries. And with such great love bestowed upon us, we must now ask a soul-searching question: What will we do in response?

Is God truly the center of your life? Or has He been gently pushed to the side, replaced by the fleeting priorities of this world? We must be honest with ourselves, for the Lord desires not a portion of our hearts but their entirety. He desires not a place among many but to reign supreme as the center, the anchor, the foundation of everything.

The first pillar—the importance of keeping God as your focus—is not a theological concept to merely discuss. It is a life to be lived. And it begins by acknowledging that we are not our own. We belong to the One who formed us, redeemed us, and sustains us. He must be our first thought in the morning, our guiding hand throughout the day, and our comfort and rest in the evening hours.

I encourage you today to examine your life. What sits at the center of your thoughts, your ambitions, your decisions? Is it comfort? Career? Control? Or is it Christ? Because only when God is at the center will the rest of life fall into place. Only then will our love be rightly ordered, our purpose clearly understood, and our steps firmly directed.

So I challenge you, dear friends, not just to feel love for God—but to live it. Let your life reflect the divine order He established from the beginning. Love Him first. Love Him most. And make Him the center—not merely in word, but in deed. Let everything you do—how you work, how you speak, how you serve, how you love others—be a reflection of the truth that God loved you first.

And let us remember, as we close, that living with God at the center will shape how we love one another. The love that begins in our Creator flows through us into every relationship we touch. In this way, our God-centered life becomes a living testimony to a world in need of that very same love.

So, I say to you, "May the Lord strengthen your faith and use it for His glory, as you walk humbly in His presence."