Evaluating Priorities

Many use the New Year holiday as a time to evaluate priorities. When we do, we have to ask ourselves what is important to us. Our family? Our friends? A job? The community? Or is God the most important reality?

Jesus did not minimize family or friends or daily life. Remember that He restored sick children to their parents, He provided food for hungry people, and He blessed a wedding with His presence and with supernatural provision.

Yet Jesus made it clear that family and friends—or jobs and communities—cannot be most important. God must be pre-eminent.

He told a young man to sell everything he owned and then he would have treasure in heaven. (Mt. 19:21b NKJV) He told the disciples that anyone who prefers family members is not worthy of Me. (10:37b)

It seems too harsh when not understood in the light of grace. But if we put God ahead of all else, if He is first in our lives, through His provision we have more love to give others. In fact, we have more than if we had not put God first.

When preparing for His death, Jesus said, For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. (16:25)

Jesus should always be our example, and He never subverted His priorities. He abandoned everything to His Father's will and brought salvation to all who receive him.

Originally published December 31, 1992.
Picture: Antique ceramic angels. Photo by Solveig.

Become Human Again?

Someone once said that God became flesh—came to earth as a baby—so people can truly become human again. That might seem like a strange idea. But because we are sinners, our humanity or human-ness often falls short of what it should be. Jesus came to change that.

Jesus lived His entire life in perfect harmony with Father God the way God intended all people to live. Through His perfect life and His death, Jesus brings us life. When the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, the angel said, And she [ Mary] will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. (Mt. 1:21 NKJV)

When we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we receive a portion of His life—as much of Him as we can accept by faith. Our fallen human nature is always a disappointment. When we look at Him and His life in faith, we reach out to grasp a higher, more complete life ourselves. God’s power in us can overrule our baser instincts. He changes people who follow Him into people who are more fully human.

Originally published December 18, 1992.