Throughout your life, your priorities are constantly changing. When you are a toddler, you put yourself over anything and everyone. Everything is “mine.” Sharing is a concept that is completely ignored. You have a very egocentric view of things, and your only real priority is yourself. When you get a little older, your egocentric view gradually diminishes and you start to look at things from others point of view. When you get to be a teenager is when you start really having to make a choice. What’s important to you? What do you care about? What’s going to be your main focus? When I was in high school, my dad would always say “Ryan, you need to keep your priorities straight.” Being the 14,15,16 year old I was at the time I shoved that aside. Cause when your a teenager your parents are never right, right? Well, turns out my dad was right. At that time, he was talking about how school needed to be my priority. But something my dad told me at a young age, was that it’s God first, family second. In this, what’s going to be put third after family is ministry, or serving. This concept of priorities in your life is something that is important from a spiritual point of view. The Bible makes it clear what the order of importance is here.
1. God first
Matthew 22:37-38 says “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.”
The first and greatest commandment. If you follow that, you’re following the most important thing. It’s that simple. I’m not saying that your family and serving others aren’t important. I’m saying that compared to loving God they aren’t important.
2. God over family (which is second)
In Luke 14:26-27 Jesus says “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
Yeah, hate is a strong word. Especially when it’s associated with your family. But Jesus doesn’t literally want you to hate your family. That’s unbiblical. He means in comparison to the love that you have for Him. The love you have for others and even your own life should be like hate in comparison to your love for the Lord. Jesus goes on to say you must bear your own cross and come after Him. You gotta chase Him. It takes effort. It’s a daily decision to take up your cross, not a one time thing. Every day you’ve gotta take up your cross in order to be His follower, His disciple.
3. God over serving (which is third)
This point brings us to the story of Mary and Martha in Luke chapter 10, starting at verse 38.
– “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Martha was concerned about preparing everything for her guests, being hospitable and caring for others, which is commendable. But some people in the church today get too distracted with doing things for other people. They become so fixated on doing things for God that they forget that their relationship with God is more important than whatever they could do for Him. We need to be like Mary. We need to choose what is better, what won’t be taken away from us.
On the race sometimes I’ve put ministry over God. I don’t consciously do it. But I get tired, I get lazy, I lack the self discipline to spend time with God as much as I want to or need to at times. When I do this, I notice the imbalance in my life. On the race I’ve realized how important it is to spend time with God when you’re constantly serving others.
4. Family over serving
In 1 Timothy chapter 3, Paul writes to Timothy about the qualifications for overseers and deacons in the church. The first thing he writes is “Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.” An overseer has to be a solid man of God. He’s gotta have a good reputation among people. The next two verses say “He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?).” That’s powerful. If you’re a man who can’t take care of his family, who are you to be someone who edifies and watches over the God’s church? To be the person that guides people toward God when you can’t even guide your family in the proper direction.
If you want to be an effective person for God’s kingdom you need to have your priorities straight. Is it easy? No. Is it natural? Maybe for some people, but speaking for myself, it’s a conscious decision that requires work. It requires you to have a heavenly perspective of things.
Colossians 3:2 – Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
Alright. Now I want to thank everyone who has supported me in any way at all to get me to where I am today, whether it be financially or through prayer. Thanks to the help of my family and friends I’m FULLY FUNDED for my trip. You guys have provided me with the opportunity to help people in other countries in so many different ways, which has led to so much growth in myself both spiritually and as a person. Please continue to pray for my squad and I as we are starting our 2 months in Guatemala, and will soon be going to Ethiopia for 3 months.
P.S – Jared I talked with you about spiritual priorities when you got back from your race. Thank you for being a friend that I can look up to. You’re a young old man, and you carry more wisdom than you think. Love you brother.
