The Main Thing

In our ladies' Bible Study this week we were talking about priorities. The lesson teaches that the word prior comes from Latin and means first. Well that's obvious, isn't it? My priorities are what come first in my life. We were talking about the fact that sometimes we tend to believe the lie that we can thrive without regular time spent in God's Word and in prayer, and how, in today's society, things are so busy that it's easy to say I couldn't find time or I ran out of time for having my devotions today.

But then the question was asked, what's the first thing you do when you get up in the morning? Head to the coffee pot? Turn on the TV to catch the news? Pick up your phone and scroll through facebook? If those are first then those would be your priorities.

Ouch.

There's another area where priorities tend to get out of whack, and that's in the area of service. Many of you who read the blog are either in full time Christian service, or actively involved in your church. And that's as it should be. But it's very easy when you're busy in ministry to lose sight of your focus.

Sometimes you can be so busy serving the Lord that you forget to worship Him. It's easy, especially in a smaller church, for workers to take on more and more duties to the point where they are never actually sitting in a service under the preaching. Our church has a policy of making sure that no one is involved in that many ministries because we all need regular instruction from the man of God in addition to daily Bible reading and prayer. In fact, there have been a few occasions where my husband has temporarily removed someone from their particular ministry because they were only getting to church on days when they were scheduled to serve.

The other time our service priorities get out of order is when we start feeling unappreciated. I think this is an area where Satan manages to weaken the work of the church more than almost any other because when we start feeling unappreciated, then we start feeling neglected and then we started feeling resentful. Then we stop serving. Or even stop going to church at all. And suddenly Satan's won.

When we work hard, we like to be acknowledged. That's only natural. But we do need to remember two things: our service is for God, not for man. I Corinthians 10:31 says, Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. We also need to remember that Jesus warned us not to do things for the praise of man.  When talking about the Pharisees He said, For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. John 12:43

It is amazing how good things can be twisted so easily if we don't keep our focus on Jesus. So as you go out serving this week, remember to keep these main things in mind:

We were created for His pleasure. Revelation 4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

We have a mandate to follow here on earth. Mark 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.