I Had It First

Did you ever watch to young children play together. Sometimes they "get along" just fine but other times they will fight over a toy. The "I had it first" syndrome. I've seen this many times and with the same children. The children start arguing or fighting over a toy till Mom comes and she say "What is going on" One Child says I want to play with the toy. The other child says I had it first. What is a mother to do. Give the toy back to the child who had it first, offer one child a special toy to distract them or take the toy away? I think before you can solve the problem you need to see the Heart. This is a heart issue. Why does one child have to be first to play with a toy? Why does the other child have to have the same toy? If you get to the Heart issue you can usually solve the problem with sharing.

Now let look at adults we do the same thing. Why do we go and buy the latest, newest or best of something? Why so we want to be so much like our neighbors or the friend from church? Why do we do things to please others? It is a Heart issue. If you look deep inside yourself you will see things you don't like. Those things need to be changed and to do that you need to continue be giving your Heart to God.

Romans 7:14-20
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.


Matthew 12:35 NIV • Read this chapter
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.