He chuckled to himself, remembering how two years ago he attempted to apply the three departmental priorites of Life Safety, Fire Control, and Property Conservation to his marriage. She had told him he needed to get his priorities straight, and this worked on the fire scene, so he thought, why not give this a try? He calculated that his life was of the utmost importance, thus, he should fulfill his needs first. Secondly, he would simply extinguish any flaming arguments that came up, and therefore, save his household from any unforeseen damage. He remembered how unimpressed she was (it was evident by the way her eyes rolled back in her head) when she asked what he was willing to do to help their marriage and he told her his plan. At that, she pulled out a book and handed it to him."Read this, please. Men are reading it all over the country and it's changing their lives.", she pleaded.He had taken it to heart and read it over the weekend. Now he sat staring at it in his hands, thankful for the change God had set forth in his marriage. It was titled, "The Man In the Mirror" and had a man looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He had just wiped off the steam covering the image of his face. He thumbed through the pages to find the chapter that had changed his priorities:Most men don't even know what their priorities are. They simply fill their schedules with what seems fun and what they have to do. Then they just react to anything else that pops up. Morley reasons that this is why we are so worn down today. A Christian might be found saying, "I wish I had more time to do God's work." when in essence, he might simply be doing too many of the wrong things.God establishes five priorities for the Christian life. We can weigh our activities against each of these categories to see if we can still maintain the balance He intended us to keep.The top priority is to love God. Jesus said the greatest commandment was to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.". (Matt. 22: 36-37). We can demonstrate our love for God by studying the Bible to get to know Him, obeying His teachings, communicating with Him by prayer throughout the day, worshipping Him in church regularly, and sharing ten percent of our earnings to further His ministry.Our second priority according to Christ's instruction is to "Love your neighbor as yourself.". (Matt. 22: 39) God wants us to place great importance on relationships with others: our children, our wives, our parents, and our acquaintances.Thirdly, God is interested in our rest; not just physical, but emotional and mental also. He desires for us to put our faith in Him so He can give us a complete peace and contentment in this life. He doesn't wish for us to expel all of our energies pursuing worldly theings, but to invest our time and money for His work. Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." (Matt. 11: 28-29)We find our fourth priority to be in our work. God has given us vocations to pursue to the best of our abilities, claiming the power of Christ as reasons for our achievements. This is a testimony to the world that Christ impacts our lives in a daily, practical way.The fifth priority is to do good works. God needs our help in telling others about Him, helping others know Him better, and caring for the poor and needy. We can accomplish these tasks by maximizing the spiritual gifts God has given us. Search these scriptures for clues to what spiritual gifts you may have: I Peter 4: 10-11; Romans 12: 4-8; Ephesians 4: 11-12; I Corinthians 12: 1-12.These five priorities are Biblically sound and give evidence to God's will for our lives. We should make every effort to minimize the effect of the world and money and maximize the impact of these five priorities. Doing this, we can know that we are enacting God's purpose and plan as real, Biblical Christians. To God be the glory.Next week: Time Management: Doing God's Will.
