Priorities

"6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!  10 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ."    Galations 1: 6-10 NIV

In these verses, Paul is speaking to the people about trying to live by the law and deserting grace completely. When I read these verses, another type of persuasion comes to mind when reflecting on modern times.  You see, over time, Satan has become more cunning in the way that he gets our attention. We often do not realize that he has turned our heads until it is too late. It may be easy for us to read these verses and wonder why the people of that day and time did not see what was happening. However, if you fast forward several years, we are often doing the same thing in a different way.

In every life, trouble will come. For Christians, it is documented that trouble will come. Things will break, things will go wrong, jobs will be lost, people will die, marriages will find conflict, people will get sick, etc. I think you get the picture. I am certain that if you reflect on your past year, you can come up with some examples. I know that I can.  When these things happen, for the most part, we will continue to do certain things. We will continue to go to work, if possible. We will continue to care for our children. We will continue to be a spouse, if given the opportunity. We will continue to get things fixed and go about our day. For the most part, most of us will continue our daily lives to the best of our ability regardless of the circumstances set before us. We consider those things non-negotiable.

We will do so, unless it involves working for the Lord or volunteer time. When we evaluate our time constraints or the stress on our lives, the first thing that we often try to diminish is our volunteer time. This is most often the time that the Lord has asked us to give. It seems this is negotiable. When this occurs, I can't help but compare that decision to the decisions of the people Paul was speaking to. When we choose that, we must put our worldly obligations above our Godly obligations.  Then, we are surely stating that pleasing man is more important than pleasing God.

It is man who places most of the demands on us that we struggle daily to meet. It is God who gives us the grace to succeed above and beyond what they ask of us in order to fulfill His commands. Yet, it is us who most often place God's requests at the bottom of our lists.

This deception is often accepted in blindness. We don't even realize what we are doing or why we do it. We simply follow the accepted format of today's times in order to complete the tasks of our lives. We leave out what the world won't notice, and we continue to include what the world is sure to make a point of.

Perhaps, it would be most radical of us to turn our priorities upside down and begin to assess them in the reverse order of what we normally would. I do not suggest that God would have us to abandon our family obligations. I only suggest that God would have us to put His requests first. His order is God, family, and then church. He doesn't necessarily state that is His order if we are not too stressed or too busy.

Are we following His order or the order suggested by the world? Only you know what God is asking of you. It is different for each person. We are not asked to do too much or too little. We are simply asked to follow His direction.