A Change in Priorities
Living in the light of eternity should lead to a change in priorities. The more you see life from God’s eternal perspective, the more trivial the things of this earth will seem.
When you live your life in preparation for eternity, everything changes. How you view time and money will change. Your values will change. You’ll find keeping up with the latest trends, fashions, etc. are not nearly as important as they were before.
While pastoring in Wisconsin, I was part of a great pastors’ group. At one of our winter meetings, one of the pastors introduced us to his new intern, a college student named Jarah. Now, Jarah was a junior at the University of Florida, so winter in Wisconsin was a “special treat” for this young man.
As we were leaving our time together that particular snowy morning, we soon noticed that all our cars were covered in a thin blanket of snow—except Jarah’s. His lead pastor asked him, “How come my truck is covered with snow and your truck doesn’t have any snow on it?”
Jarah quickly replied, “I waxed it four times before I drove up to Wisconsin.”
Upon hearing that, I knew that Jarah had to be single and childless. What married father has time to wax his car once let alone four times!?! Of course, before I was married with kids, I had time to do lots of things, but that time is long gone... (A moment of silence, please.)
Now that I am a husband and a father, my values have changed. I could spend a couple of hours waxing my car four times, while ignoring my family, or I can invest time in my family.
Becoming a husband and a father changed what I value and how I spend my time. Similarly, becoming a Christian, a child of God, should change what we value and how we spend our time.
In Philippians 3, the Apostle Paul talks about all the things that he used to invest his life in. He then goes on to write, I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ. ~ Philippians 3:7-8
Our culture tells us that to be fulfilled, to live the good life, we need to do certain things, buy certain things, live a certain way, and so on. I must confess that I bought into it all, then I met Christ.
I realized that everything the culture said I needed to do, everything the culture said should be my priorities, was trivial and worthless compared to knowing Jesus and living in the light of eternity.
Sadly, the average American just thinks about the here and now--"Get what you can now. Enjoy yourself now. It doesn’t matter if you can’t afford it. Just buy it now and worry about paying for it later." It is short-term, self-centered thinking.
Listen, if you think this life is all that there is then my suggestion is for you to close out this blog and be as self-centered, sinful, and indulgent as you want. What could the long-term consequences be?
However, if death is not the end, if death is just a transition to eternity, then every action on earth will strike a chord which will vibrate in eternity.
