What’s Important to You?

Were I a person who placed bets, I bet I could tell you what’s important in your life without you telling me first. The fact of the matter is that you may not even know what’s most important to you. You might only assume you know. If I were to ask a series of very pointed questions, and you were to answer truthfully, I would know what’s most important in your life.

The first thing I would ask to see is your checkbook. I also want to see your credit card statements of the past year. I want to see where and on what you spend your money. No matter how much or how little you have, you will spend money on that which is important in your life. Next I want to know, apart from work, where do you spend your time. Maybe you spend all your time at work – it must be important to you. I also want to know if you share that time with someone and who that someone is. I also want to know what you would do if money was no object. If you could do anything, buy anything, and go anywhere, what would you do? And finally, I would ask you to name 10 items you would try to save (this assumes you have the time – family and pets excluded) if your house was burning down.

Loaded with this information I could pretty much boil it down as to what is important in you life. I would be able to tell how important the work of the Lord is to you.

You will spend your free-time, your energy and your resources on that which is important in your life. In somewhat of a lesser sense – but this is not a stretch – it will reveal your god. I repeat – you will spend your time, your energy and your resources on those things that are important in your life.

You will also be willing to sacrifice for that which is important. We read the exchange between Christ and a man considering following Him. “He said to another man, ‘Follow Me.’ But the man replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’” Luke 9:59,60. In Luke 14:26 we find Christ saying, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brother and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be My disciple.” It is not being taught in either of these passages that these people are not important. We know that God’s Word tells us we are to respect our parents. Christ is speaking in Luke 18:20 when He says,“You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”.

What Christ is saying is that ‘If I am your God – I take first place.’ Nothing is allowed to come between us and God.

I think that brings us back to the original point. What is your god? Evaluate yourself – what takes your time, energy, and resources? How much of it is set aside for the Lord. What are you willing to sacrifice for? Take the test, it can be very revealing.“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” II Corinthians 5:10.