God will have no other god before Him. That was the first of the Ten Commandments from God to the children of Israel (see Ex. 20:3).

You are not to allow any person, man or woman, boy or girl, to take precedence over the Lord God Himself in your life.

You cannot afford to put anybody or anything, even friendship, above God. It's better for you to be alone and with God. That, of course, is an oxymoron, because you can never be with God and be alone.

However, for the sake of discussion, let me say it's better that you be alone and with God than to have all your friends, be they girlfriends or boyfriends. It's better to be with God by yourself and to be pure, having His anointing and His glory, than to have all the pleasures of sin for a season!

Whenever God has blessed you with money or position, don't turn around and cut your own neck by putting what God has given you ahead of Him. If you do, God will be unable to bless you, even in your giving.

The question is not can God get it to you, but whether God can get it through you.

You can't be holding on to what God has given you. You have to handle it like a loose garment. You have to say: "God, as far as I'm concerned, this is only on loan or lease; it's Yours anyway."

There are three types of death. Let's look at the three types of death that are spoken of in the Bible:

Physical Death
There is physical death, which occurs when a person leaves his physical body. Remember, though, your physical body is not the real you, but only the "house" in which you live. When you leave this body, you will go somewhere.

Now I'm going to heaven, and I hope that's where you go, but that is dependent upon your decision to make Jesus the Lord of your life. Once you have made that decision, then you will live for God and not the devil.

Spiritual Death
Then there is spiritual death. This is what God was talking about when He said to Adam, "In the day that thou eatest thereof of that tree; thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:17).

Spiritual death has a twofold definition. First, it means to be separated from God. The fellowship between God and Adam (both the male Adam and the female Adam) was broken because of sin.

Secondly, spiritual death is receiving Satan's nature, which is exactly what happened to Adam. The man and woman in the garden received the nature of the enemy, Satan, and that satanic nature showed up immediately in their children with their oldest son killing his brother.

Satan's nature is to kill, to steal, and to destroy; God's nature is to give life. Satan's nature is based on fear; God's nature is based on faith (1 John 4:17-18; 5:4).

Eternal Death
Then there is eternal death. We find this in Revelation 20:14, which says "that death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire." Hell is not the final place; it will be tossed into the lake of fire that will burn forever.

Now as we read in Scripture, Adam (both male and female) experienced spiritual death immediately. Its ramifications showed up in Genesis, Chapter 3, as they heard the voice of God Who was walking in the cool of the day, "And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? Adam said: 'I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid.'"

There was no fear in this planet until then. Adam had no knowledge of fear until after he had died spiritually.

God held Adam accountable for the sin and death that came into the world. And that's the way it is. In the same way God holds the man accountable for what happens in his marriage.

It's the man's responsibility to keep wooing the woman, chasing after her and winning her, then cleaving to her and ministering to her as her husband. He is to work at keeping her happy, and she is to adapt herself to him and be complete for him.

The only real argument a husband and wife should be having is about which one will be a greater blessing to the other. That sounds like a good marriage to me!

As we learned in the book of Genesis, the man was not deceived. He understood what was happening and he made a choice. I had a choice in my life. I could have chosen to disobey God by staying in the corporate world. I could have chosen to have all the accolades that come with the money and the fame.

But I decided to obey God when He said to me: "Leave your job and go into the ministry. Take everything that you have and give it to Me, then do what I say. I am sending you to a place that you know not."

I lost all the praises of men. But I found out that when you lose the praise of men you gain the praise of God. By obeying God, I received His anointing to carry out His Word. He anointed me when I preached, when I laid hands on the sick, and when I cast out devils.

And guess what else happened? The derision of men was turned around. Those people stopped talking against me! Some of them even began to praise my actions.

So what happened after Adam and Eve chose to eat the fruit of that tree? They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. Then we see man doing what men are still doing today: "And the man said, 'The woman whom thou gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat'" (Gen. 3:12).

Something you will find out about Satan's nature is that it always looks to establish blame somewhere else, saying, "It's not my fault; it's somebody else's fault."

The first thing Adam started to do was to put the blame on someone else. Instead of admitting to God, "Yes, I did it," he wouldn't even acknowledge it. In fact, he blamed God even before he blamed the woman. Notice how he phrased his statement: "The woman whom thou gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree."

In other words, "You gave me this woman, God. I knew the tree was there, but I didn't bother it. She bothered the tree. She's the one who did it, and You're the One Who gave her to me."

Are you always trying to blame God for your troubles? If so, it's time you stopped blaming God for what has happened in your life. It wasn't God's fault. Remember, God isn't your problem; He's your answer.

Whenever you sin, you might be able to hide it from your pastor and other people, but you can never hide it from God. God always sees what is going on, so don't think you can get away with it. You need to repent of that sin and change your way of living.

Source: What On Earth Are We Here For? by Keith Butler.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers