Examining Priorities

Sunday musings from this weeks scripture study.

"And behold one came and said unto him, Good Master, 

what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

And he said unto him,...if thou wilt enter into life,

 keep the commandments.

He saith unto him, Which?  Jesus said,

thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not

steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,

Honour thy father and thy mother: and,

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

The young man saith unto him,

All these things have I kept from my youth up:

what lack I yet?

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, 

go and sell that thou hast, and give to the

poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven:

and come and follow me.

But when the young man heard that saying,

he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions."

Matthew 19:16-22

Whenever I've read this passage in the past, I've always thought it was about

the dangers of wealth.  And it could be, if accumulating material possessions

is the thing that consumes your thoughts and time.  For this wealthy, young

ruler this seemed to be the case.   It appears that he knew the law as it had 

been taught to him in his youth and had been faithful in keeping the

commandments.  He had the external religious behavior down pat.  Yet, he

sensed there was more that he needed to do.  Thus the question, "what lack

I yet?"

Then Jesus answered that he should sell what he owned,  give it to the poor 

and come follow him.  When he heard this response, he turned away from 

Jesus and was sad, because he loved the things his wealth had given him and

he didn't want to give them up.  This thing that Jesus asked him to do was too

hard.

So what's the principle here?  It's not that money is bad and that if we have it,

we should give it all to the poor.  It might not be about money at all. I think it's

about putting God first in our lives.  He doesn't want to be second or third. 

He wants to be first and as disciples of Christ, we have to be constantly

examining our priorities to see if that's where He is.  Putting God first means

sacrificing other things.  And those other things will be different for each

of us.  

What consumes our thoughts and our free time?  

What do we turn to in times of stress? 

Where do we turn for comfort?  

Where do we seek peace?

We could answer these questions with things like:  food, work, shopping,

hobbies such as sports or gardening, watching tv, reading or blogging.  

The answers might come in the form of people, such as our spouse, friends 

or family.  It could even be service work in the community or in our church.

These can all be wonderful things in our lives, blessings from God.  The key

is keeping them where they need to be in our priority line up.  When we ask

ourselves those questions again might we see how the answer to each one of 

them should be...God.   He wants us to be consumed with Him.  He wants

us to turn to him in times of need.  He is our only real comfort and our only

source of peace.  The other things are counterfeit.  They seem to make us

happy at the time, but it's not lasting joy and happiness. That can only be

found in our relationship with our Savior.

I believe this is what Jesus was trying to teach the rich, young ruler.  If you

want to have eternal life, you need to give up the thing that consumes you

and put me first in your life.  For him it was wealth, for you and me it might

be something totally different.  But I believe we each struggle with something

that keeps us from being as close to the Lord as we wish to be and he knows

exactly what that thing is.  If we ask him, "what lack I yet?", he will tell us.

Will we listen and courageously make changes, or will we walk away sadly?

I'm asking the question and I'm praying for courage to make changes when

He answers.

*MYOF Goal #14  - Begin each day with scripture and prayer.

                         #22 -   Study the New Testament.