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What Are Your Priorities In Life?

  • | Chris McCann
  • Audio: Length: 10:19 Size: 9.4 MB

Hello and welcome. Please allow me to ask you a question. What are your priorities in life?

Someone might say, “Well, first of all, education; I need to get a diploma, a Master’s degree or a Doctorate. That will set me up for a good career,” which is another top priority in many people’s lives: a good-paying job, a job that is worthwhile. Thirdly, someone might say that a top priority is having a family, finding a good wife or a good husband and raising children in a nice home.

These are the priorities of many people. Many people are striving and seeking to obtain these things. Of course, people seek many other things along with these because God has given us a world that is very enjoyable and full of things that we can do that are pleasurable. We can really enjoy life as we live in this world.

Well, also on many people’s list is a right relationship with God. It is somewhere down on their list. It is not near the top, but it is on their list.

God, actually, would rearrange our priorities, and this has always been true. It has always been a fact that God should not be number five or number seven or number ten on our list of what we should be seeking after in this life. No, God would always have Himself as Number One.

Actually, considering the day that we are living in, as we have learned from the Bible that May 21 in the year 2011 will be Judgment Day, our priorities ought to be revisited. Each one of us should look at what we are doing with our lives. What are we desiring? What are we seeking after? What has Number One priority, as we go day-by-day?

The Lord tells us in Matthew 6:31-33:

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

This is the rearrangement of man’s priorities by God Himself.

You know, the Lord is really helping us. Here is the direction for your life and for my life and for everyone’s life, if we would but listen to God’s Word. “Seek ye first,” not money, not food, not clothing, not these things that are all around us in the world. It is true that individuals who have no concern for a right relationship with God seek these things at the top of their lists. But God says, “Number One, seek the Kingdom of God.”

This is what is of the greatest importance and what ought to be sought first: God’s Kingdom, which is incredibly glorious and weighty and a tremendously everlasting great mercy of God that anyone would be able to enter His Kingdom. Seek this first because this lasts forever. Because it is eternal, this greatly supersedes any earthly joys or pleasures or involvements, or anything else that this world can offer.

You can pile up the greatest life imaginable. You can be the richest man and the most respected man and have all the things that you desire; yet in comparison to a place in the Kingdom of God in God’s Heaven for all eternity, anything that you would be able to obtain in this life would only last but a moment compared to the vastness of eternity future. All of life is only but a drop of water that quickly evaporates, in comparison to the eternal life that awaits the child of God, with God dwelling in their very presence forevermore.

Therefore, it is obvious that God’s Kingdom is so valuable that it should be desired and sought first; not second, not any other spot, but first. We should get up in the morning going to prayer. We should get up in the morning reading the Bible. We should begin each day first by going to God. In the back of our minds, as we are doing the necessary things of this life, our desire really should be, “Oh, I cannot wait to go to lunch in order to spend some time with God’s Word,” or “I cannot wait to get home, after all my responsibilities are taken care of, so that I can pray to the Lord that He might have mercy and help me and strengthen me to live and to do His will.” You see, God’s Kingdom is of the utmost importance. Nothing can compare to it.

Likewise, the Lord says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.” God tells us to seek His righteousness because it is impossible that any of our righteousness can grant us entry into the Kingdom of God. It is only through what the Lord Jesus Christ has done and His great work of faith that anyone can enter into Heaven and obtain eternal life. They really go hand-in-hand. You cannot seek the Kingdom of God any other way except through Christ and His righteousness. It is only through His righteousness that we would be permitted to enter into the gates of Heaven.

How do we seek Christ’s righteousness? We go to God and we confess, “Oh Lord, I am a sinner and all my righteousness, that is all of my good works or deeds or anything that I have done that even remotely seems like it was a good thing, is nothing in your sight but like filthy rags. Oh Lord, have mercy on me. Grant me the covering of Christ’s righteousness, that pure white garment, the fine linen of the saints. Wash me from my sins that I might be clean and righteous only for Jesus’ sake.” This is the way to go to God.

Now, we do not know what God is going to do. If we go to Him pleading, it could be just as the Ninevites hoped. As we cry mightily to God, the Lord might turn from His anger. This was the case with the Ninevites. God did turn and save many in that city.

May He have mercy upon you and upon His people. For this day and for the few days that we have left, may we seek first that Kingdom of God and His righteousness.