personal holiness, but for who's sake?

i often find myself thinking about how i should be acting for my future congregation (if God gives me one) or future wife (again, if God gives me one :). i think about things like personal holiness, purity, knowing the bible, and things like these and how i need to have them in my life for their sakes, which is true, i should have them in my life for them, but truer still, i must have these sorts of things in my life for my sake and God's sake for i must desire a relationship with Him first BEFORE i can think of others.

when i say "before", so as to dispel some wrong notions, this "before" is not a measure of time but of importance. the first thing on a believer's mind should be God and how they (believer and God) are doing, and then second should be other people.

this comes back to the greatest commandment, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength" all commandments can be summed up in this one and the next one, "Love your neighbor as yourself" if you do these things perfectly, you fulfill the whole law. what a glorious thought! this shows that God had all male disciple (at least one thing) because God summed everything up into 2 things so that we could remember them :)

all things boil down to love so compare all that you do, if it is FIRST loving towards God and then loving towards ALL men, then you should do it.

(when i say "all men" i mean all but God does give some other laws about which men we are to follow at certain time, i.e. authority)