Today’s devotional: does God set your priorities?
Is God the “number 1 priority” in your life? Christians are accustomed to hearing this question leveled at them in sermons, books, and retreats. Most of us have the general sense that God isn’t as high a priority in our lives as He should be. But what does it mean to make God our top priority?
In this devotional from the Delve Into Jesus archives, Michael Lane writes about what it means to make God a priority in your life… but it’s not what you think. Making God your “top priority” isn’t a matter of increasing your time spent in prayer, Bible study, and church. It means allowing God to guide and direct you in everything you do during the day, whether you’re memorizing the book of Ephesians or changing the oil in your Subaru.
Spending time with God in prayer, reading His word and worshiping with other believers are all extremely important, but you must be aware of your intentions when you engage in these activities. If you read a chapter of the Gospel before bed, does it feel like you can now scratch “read the Bible” off your list of chores? During daily prayer time, do you feel a nagging urge to rush through it so that you can move on to other things?
Consider that if you set God as one among many priorities in your life, then obviously you are the one setting priorities, not God. As contrary as it may sound, God does not want to be a priority in our lives. He does not even want to be our first priority. He wants to be the One who sets the priorities.
“Is God a priority in your life?” is a good question. But more important is the question, “Does God set the priorities in your life?” How would you answer?
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve walked with God and talked with God. They had a full-on, intimate relationship with God much like we might have with our father today. That is how our relationship with God was intended to be. Close, personal, intimate, and continual.
We have to work at it today. The world has overtaken us. Our own selfish pride and immaturity have overtaken us. It does not help that fewer and fewer even believe in God or seek a relationship with Him. One has to “go against the stream” now to completely trust that God is the source of their life. The world does not make it easy to act in a way that God is the center of one’s being.
The real battles between good and evil are fought in the mind. We make choices all the time. One of the options always involves the “What would Jesus do?” approach. By keeping in mind what God expects of us one can act in a Godly way.
Brother Lawrence, in the 17th century, wrote the book “Practicing the Presence of God” where he said the key is to change your attitude when you do your daily tasks, as though you were doing them for God and not for yourself. Then everything you do becomes and act of worship for God. He also prayed conversational prayers that were short throughout the day, rather than long and complex prayers. In short, he knew God was always present wth him, so he acted accordingly in his mind, his actions, and his prayers.
God is always present. He made everything, he is in everything. It is simply becoming mindful of God at all times.
Do I let God “set” priorities in my life? I know that I don’t and never thought about it in that way. So many times we say that God is the head of our life and in Proverbs we are to Trust in the Lord and lean not to our own understanding and in all our ways acknowledge Him and He will direct our paths. But do we really allow Him to do those things. If we would take the time to trust Him to direct our paths, to “set” our daily priorities. Each day we should ask the Lord what is it He would like for us to do. Is there someone He want us to reach? Is there someplace He wants us to go? Instead we have our day set and God usually is in a slow track behind us, waiting patiently for us to acknowledge Him. It is not until we run into oposition that we realize that we forgot to seek Him first. We need to keep our focus and minds on the things of God and allow Him to lead and guide us where He wants us to go and allow Him to “set” our daily priorities.
I really like the devotionals. Please allow my reply to be submitted, this site is very helpful to ones spirituality!
Is God my priority? does he order my priorities? All i can say is I hope so and I do want it to be so.
I am always challenged in foresight in knowing if the way i am going is God’s way, and often in hindsight saying well that is not what God wanted.
We make decisions everyday, many times for me they are imperfect decisions, that is they did not produce the results i expected, does that mean that God was not ordering my priorities why this happened? Personally I don’t think so. (not sure if this is allowed, but does anyone have an opinion on this? would love to know how others feel)
Great Devotional!! I know there is definitely more than one verse that would go along with this devotional, but I was curious as to what you guys thought would be the best that would relate?
In addition to Gerald’s comment I find it tough sometimes to distinguish between what I want and what God wants. Meaning, you make a decision thinking that is what God wants but maybe its really what you want. There’s a fine line and I find it hard sometimes to distinguish. I never respond to blogs and this is a first, but I was intrigued and really wanted to respond. Thanks!!
Thankyou, I am currently having a struggle with serving God and the part…
“If you read a chapter of the Gospel before bed, does it feel like you can now scratch “read the Bible†off your list of chores? During daily prayer time, do you feel a nagging urge to rush through it so that you can move on to other things?”
… is exactly how i feel lately. It was good for me to read this and i hope to improve in serving God because i want to rather than treating it as a chore.
I too would like to know of any bible references :).
Thanks!
Maybe the real questions is………do we have any other priorities besides God because we should really only have one (Matthew 10:37)