Living Our Priorities

"...God gives me enough time to do what God wants me to do.  God never calls us to do something and fails to give us enough time to do it." - John Ortberg

Are you living your priorities or are you just trying to do guilt management?  Many of us are missing out on the life God is calling us to live because we are just too busy.  It is often said, "If the devil can't make you bad, he will make you busy."

We can find ourselves in guilt management when we pray, read our Bible, or go to church just enough to appease our conscious.  When we live like this growth rarely happens, our faith is dull, and our lives are weak.  The early church did not reproduce like we see in Acts because they figured out how to reduce worship, prayer, serving, and community into tiny, small commitments that fit in around life as usual.  These were their priorities.  They were of first importance and the world was changed because of it.

When we look at our calendar we see a lot of squares.  The question we must ask ourselves is, "How will I fill these squares?"  One day will be your final square, will you have lived your priorities?

It All Goes Back In The Box

I enjoy playing board games.  One of my favorites is Ticket To Ride.  Each time we set up the board my goal is to plan my routes strategically so I will accumulate the most points at the end of the game.  As I observe life, I notice we live it very similar to how we would play a board game.  John Ortberg explains it this way,

"It's not bad to play the game.  It's not bad to be really good at it.  It's not bad to be Master of the Board.  My grandmother taught me to play to win.  But there are always more rungs to climb, more money to be made, more deals to pull off.  And the danger is that we forget to ask what really matters.  We race around the board with shallow relationships, frenzied schedules, preoccupied souls.  Being smart or strong does not protect you from this fate.  In some ways, it makes the game more dangerous, for the temporary rewards you get from playing can lull you into pretending that the game will never end."

There is a connection between our emotional scoring system and our behavior.  We tend to compare, compete, or climb.  The danger is that we will spend our lives comparing to others, competing against others, or climbing over others.  None of these emulate the call of a disciple of Jesus Christ.  Actually, Jesus came down, humbling himself by taking on humanity and becoming a servant.

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." - Philippians 2:5-8

When the game is over it all goes back in the box.  Life one day will be over and all you have accomplished, worked for, built, etc. will go back in the box.  The challenge for us is will we arrange our lives around what matters most.

Thoughts on Boston

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

- 2 Corinthians 4:4

As I reflect on what happened in Boston yesterday I see something more dangerous than a terror attack, I see the deceitfulness of sin.  You see, the terror attack is an obvious manifestation of a sinful, corrupt, depraved generation that is devoid of God.  We have seen this first hand in America over and over again in the forms of shootings, bombings, and attacks.  While Satan has us looking at the tragedy that is on the news we miss the real tragedy.

This is what I like to call the cycle of deceit.  Follow me for a second; a bomb explodes and people die, then the nation unites, seeks justice, and starts to reflect on life which raises spiritual questions.  After the initial sting of the event and maybe a visit or two to church it slowly becomes a faint memory.  Most people continue on in their lives blinded, unable to see the light of the gospel and glory of Christ.

We need to pray for Boston, but most importantly we need to pray the the eyes of people's hearts will be enlightened to the gospel and glory of Christ.  Pray the scales will fall from their eyes and the deceitfulness of sin will no longer rule their lives, that the Spirit of God would fall on them to see the glory and majesty of Jesus.

Many people want answers, many people want hope.  We as followers of Jesus Christ have been given the privilege and responsibility to be the hope givers.  May we rejoice that our hope is built in nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.