Priorities

“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need.” (Matthew 6:33 NLT)

As vitally important as it is to share the Lord Jesus with those who are lost in our spheres of influence, it will never be effective unless and until we get these two things in their right order: Seeking the Lord Jesus “above all else” and living “righteously”. But what do those things mean? And how can we do them effectively and fruitfully for the Lord?

When I first began to date my wife, she was all I could think about. When I wasn’t with her, I wanted to be speaking with her on the phone. I hated to be out of contact with her. That’s how I feel about Jesus now. Every second, regardless of whatever else I may be doing, I desire His presence. “Lord, thank You for Your presence, help me, guide me, enable me, inform me, protect me, just enable me to sense your closeness.”

Whatever the situation calls for, I’m checking in with Him to get His input. Without Him I am nothing and can literally do nothing, so what makes me think I can accomplish anything on my own, without His presence guiding me? To me, that’s what seeking Him first means. Realizing He is always with me, for me, guiding, equipping, and helping me gives me courage and confidence to walk wherever He guides and to do whatever He asks me to do without hesitation and with full confidence that it’s in line with His will.

That relates to the second priority that we must always keep in view – living righteously. What might that look like? In a broad sense it means to live virtuously, but without pretense. It means to be innocent, faultless, guiltless, but most importantly, to be approved of and acceptable to the Lord. In its simplest form it means to not lose contact with Him.

A.W. Tozer reminds us: “In an effort to get the work of the Lord done, we often lose contact with the Lord of the work.” It’s so easy to lose track of why we’re doing what we’re doing, even something very God honoring. We can get so caught up in working in the energy of the flesh, feeling everything is dependent upon us. WE’VE got a deadline to meet, a sermon/lesson to prepare, a meeting to attend, a friend with whom to visit, this obligation or that – the list is virtually endless of ways we can invest ourselves in God’s Kingdom. Yet, to the extent we leave the Lord out of the equation, to that extent we’ve wasted our time and energy, because it will be of no eternal value.

As Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 13:3: “If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it, but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.” Love is who God is, thus, must be the motivating factor in everything we do, say, or think. That’s why it’s not optional as a child of God to try to accomplish anything in the energy of the flesh unless and until it’s given by the Lord as an assignment from Him and we maintain our focus on Him as we carry it out.

Priorities can be tricky and too often we can do the wrong thing, move in the wrong direction, invest in the wrong person or project, not because our heart is wrong, but because we haven’t listened to the Lord. If He doesn’t direct us our energy is being exerted in vain. So, how do we know what He’s directing us to do?

We’re back to square one – making Him our top priority! When we’re in constant contact with Him, when HE IS OUR AGENDA, we’ll never miss His directives or misunderstand His heart.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊