First Things First

First Things First

Read: Matthew 6:25-34

“Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?”

Matthew 6:25

“You can’t get second things by putting them first. You can get second things only by putting first things first.”

—C. S. Lewis

IN WORD If other people were to calculate how we spend our time, or the allocations in our checkbook, what would they say about our priorities? Would they say the kingdom of God is our priority? Would they say we truly know what life is about?

We are told not to worry about what we will eat or drink. Why do we have that tendency? And why would God turn our attention away from it? The answer to the first “why” is that we get our priorities mixed up. We spend all our time trying to sustain ourselves so that we might experience and enjoy life. But we never get around to experiencing and enjoying life because we’re spending all our time on sustaining it. Our priorities are wrong.

The answer to the second “why” is that God wants us to invest in what is valuable. In spite of all the obsessiveness about food in our culture, and in spite of all the billions spent on marketing the latest “look,” these things are temporary. In the eternal scheme of things, food and clothes and other externals have no significance. They are not valuable. They only support what is valuable—life. We act as though the wrapping is more important than the gift. We don’t recognize real value.

IN DEED What are we to do with mixed-up priorities and misplaced values? Lay them aside. Look at what God does with His birds and His lilies. They spend all their lives just “being” for the glory of God. We spend all our lives just “doing,” usually for the glory of ourselves. We need Jesus to come along and radically revise our conception of things. He takes our upside-down thinking here and turns it upright, the way God intended it. Let us measure our priorities with those God has for us.