Self-Examination: Why Don’t We Make God Our Only Priority?

Yesterday I got one of those phone calls you don’t want to hear (and, unfortunately, I hear them all too often). A friend of our oldest Son, who’s been at our house a number of times, lost his dad. I met his dad once. We talked about video games, similar interests, and the like. I gave him my number, invited him to church, and even intended on calling on him. We made plans to talk, but never found the time. And in the blink of an eye, the world changed for my son’s friend. In a moment, a blink of an eye the world changes. We don’t have the time we think we do. All too often, I hear people counting on “some day.” “When my kids are older, when I get out of school, when I get the job I want, when I’m in a good place financially, when my life is better, I’ll get right with God.” Many of us have intentions to read the Bible and participate in church, we have intentions to follow Jesus, but we have other priorities. If we don’t make time with God a top priority for (or even the center of ) our lives, or in the lives of our kids, why then should we expect our kids, our homes, our jobs, and our minds to have the peace of God that we’re promised? Simply put, we think we have enough time, but we don’t know the measure or number of our days. Why do we think we have more time than we do? We’re not promised another minute than the time we have right now. Shouldn’t that give us an urgency to draw near to God, and to tell others about Him? Shouldn’t we seek to bring in our spouses, our kids, our neighbors, our friends and our enemies? The passive “I don’t want to force it on them” doesn’t work for spreading the good news. If you love someone (and especially if you don’t), you should tell people about Jesus. In our homes, we should make Jesus the center of everything we do, say and think, and if our kids get a little resentful in the present, remember they’ll thank us later when the prodigals return home (I know I did). God shouldn’t be the top priority. He should be our only Priority. He will fix our lives, homes, and provide all our needs. What people think about us, in the long run, doesn’t matter. That we know Christ and make Him known is of ultimate importance. Matthew 6:19-34

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.