Putting First Things First

   The quality of one’s life depends, to a large degree, on the proper prioritizing of interests. When Christ said, Seek ye first the kingdom of God (Matt. 6.33), He wasn’t dismissing or denying the importance of other interests. He who was a carpenter, for instance, knew that man had to work for his daily bread. But Christ also knew that work is not the most important thing in life, and that if one thinks it is, work, and the rest of life, will be sadly diminished.

When a secondary thing is made a primary thing, life goes downhill. Job said that in the land of darkness and shadow, there is no order (Job 10.22). But when proper order is enforced in our life, when we put first things first, our life can rise to the abundant realm of which Christ spoke (Jn. 10.10). The importance of living life in its proper order can be illustrated in many ways.

Every student can travel one of two roads. One road is where the student studies just hard enough to pass a test; the night before the exam he crams his head with the information on which he’ll be tested, takes the test, and then quickly forgets everything he just regurgitated. The other possibility is that the student actually tries to learn the material in a way that will affect his life from then on. Another illustration: would you select for your family doctor a physician who valued making money over curing patients? I’ve heard horror stories of doctors who did a poor job of doctoring, who nevertheless charged for their services as if they were one of the Mayo brothers. I want a doctor who puts people/patients first; only a doctor who has his priorities right is worthy of his hire.

In Matthew 6, Christ spells out one of the terrible consequences when we fail to put first things first; namely, worry. The word translated worry means “to be pulled or drawn in different directions”; in other words, worry tears us apart. The cure for worry is to put first things first. When God is first in your life, you have at your center a loving Father, whose care extends to the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, who loves and cares for His children more than He loves and cares for birds or flowers, and who has great blessings in store for His children.

Little faith will leave you short of many blessings God is wanting to give you, but great faith will bring riches to your life far beyond what you thought possible. Three words from the latter part of Matthew 6 are key: faith (v 30), trusting God to meet your needs; Father (v 32), knowing He cares for His children ; and first (v 33), putting God’s will first in your life so that He might be glorified. If we have faith in our Father and put Him first, He will meet our needs.

Kenny Chumbley