Priorities—Fixed or Mixed

A person afoot in the desert, hot and thirsty, wants water above everything else. Someone suffering excruciating pain wants relief from that pain more than anything else. A starving person longs for food. All these situations set up clear priorities, and their solutions are obvious.

If man were no more than beast, his priorities would always be obtaining those things that would meet physical and material needs alone. But the basic priority of man, who was created in God’s image, is a right relationship to God. Until he finds this, man spends his time and energies on things that reach no further than the horizon of this world and offer no abiding rest to his spirit.

Even the Christian can allow his priorities to become so mixed that he lacks the peace of mind God wants his children to have. The Apostle Paul tells us that Christians can build the wrong kind of structure despite the right foundation of their faith in Jesus Christ. Structures of wood, hay, and stubble will be consumed in the day of testing. But those built of materials impervious to fire—gold, silver, precious stones—will survive. “If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:14, 15).

A man’s priorities are fixed by his perspectives. The psalmist was confused and discouraged when he saw the evident prosperity of the wicked “until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end” (Ps. 73:17). And then he goes on to this triumphant conclusion: “Thou dost guide me with thy counsel, and afterward thou wilt receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.… For me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all thy works” (Ps. 73:24–28).

Let a man gain a right perspective on life, on himself and on his God, and his priorities will fall into place. Until that happens he cannot know the “peace of God,” for “peace with God” comes first.

The physically blind are without the ability to discern the distance between objects. Similarly the spiritually blind cannot correctly see themselves in relation to life and God. Their perspectives and priorities are distorted. They grope through difficult situations alone or led by others equally blind.

Little wonder that the world is in chaos! Unregenerate man has rejected his Creator and become his own god, and in so doing he has lost his perspective and mixed his priorities.

But many find quiet and certitude in the midst of chaos, peace though surrounded by strife, clear direction while others rush about aimlessly. All this Christ offers, and much, much more.

To the Church and to individual Christians has been committed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the one solution to man’s predicament, the one stabilizing force for human existence. Those who do not know God through his Son are destined to futility.

The Apostle Paul describes the situation in these words: “Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. 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 likeness of God” (2 Cor. 4:3, 4).

Are we helping men to see Christ, not only through our words but also through a serenity of outlook and oneness of purpose in our day-to-day living? We gladly help a blind person across a busy street; are we less inclined to offer help to the spiritually blind?

The Apostle Paul speaks of those with lost perspective and then describes those who view things in the light of their relative importance: “We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).

God’s priorities cannot be altered at the whim of man. Men’s lives are broken by their choice of human values and priorities rather than God’s.

Those singled out as heroes of faith in the Bible are all persons who kept their perspective clear and their priorities in order. They lived vigorous and useful lives. Many shouldered great responsibilities in dealing with others. All of them had to make hard choices and grave decisions. They had one thing in common: an unquestioning faith in and obedience to God.

We cannot say that unswerving faith came easier to them because they lived in a simpler time and faced decisions less complicated than ours; regardless of time and circumstances, the simple, timeless heart of the matter is, how does a man respond to God? Our God, the God of creation, continues his sovereign power in maintaining that creation. And he is the God of redemption who offers everything man needs. When in return we offer faith and obedience to him in unqualified surrender, the things of this life and of the next, our usefulness as citizens and neighbors to others in a troubled world, all assume their rightful place.

Abraham’s faith led to an obedience in which he reasoned, concerning Isaac, “that God was able to raise men even from the dead; hence, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Heb. 11:19). Moses’ faith gave him a clear perspective on the choice between Pharaoh’s court and a nation of slaves; he cast his lot with the slaves, “choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered abuse suffered for Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he looked to the reward” (Heb. 11:25, 26).

The degree to which we surrender all our being to God in simple faith and unquestioning obedience will determine our perspective on life and how we order our priorities. The priorities our Lord established were contrary to those of the world in his time and continue to be so today. It is equally true that the perspectives of the world are not those of the Christian. The more clearly we realize the vast difference between spiritual and material values, the clearer our witness for our Lord will be.

This does not guarantee success, as the world counts success; nor does it promise peace, as the world regards peace. But it does mean that in the midst of a troubled and chaotic world we can demonstrate resources and insights that rise above these of this world. We can show that the priorities of those who seek God with all their hearts will be fixed so that to know and do his will becomes the most desirable thing in all the world.

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