First Best

I struggle with being second best. Sometimes it's perceived, sometimes it's real. Many years ago, someone very close to me chose something far inferior over having a relationship with me. They did this over and over, ultimately destroying the hope of having a healthy relationship. I mourned the loss over the years but didn't realize that I was also internalizing that feeling of being inferior. Of being less than.

Today I was thinking about another scenario and I realized that once again, I was feeling like second best. Frustrated, I told God, I just want to know that I'm not second best. I was referring to a scenario in my life but the answer was immediate and clear. To Me, you are never second best.

God knew I would be born into a sinful world and would struggle with the many temptations that would seem easy to do yet impossible to battle (Hebrews 12:1). He knew the fight to be a committed Christian would be difficult because it isn't against people we can see but against spiritual forces (Ephesians 6:12). In His great compassion, mercy and love, He poured out the best that He could give, the most that He could give. His Son for my life.

God saw me in His eyes as first best. It is because He saw me that way that He could send His Son. If God saw me as second best, He would have not accepted Jesus' decision to come to earth. He would have prevented it, arguing that Jesus' life was more important to preserve than mine because I was inferior, I was second best.

The irony is that I am inferior to Jesus. I am the created being and just like the pot is created by the potter, I am not greater than or equal to my Creator (Isaiah 29:16; 45:9). Yet, by the processes of redemption, sanctification, and justification, God equates Jesus' righteousness to my life when I accept His death and salvation by faith and acknowledge Him as divine, and He sees me as first best. God's mercy lifts me up into His kingdom.

First best.