How do you determine what and who are important in your life and how do you rank their importance when they compete for your time and attention? We call these our priorities. How do you determine your priorities?
If you were to ask most people to tell you their priorities, they would recite to you a list beginning with what they consider the most important followed by other areas of life in descending order of importance. Most Christians would begin their list by stating that God comes first, followed by such items as family, job, church, hobbies in some order. We feel good that we put God at the top of our list, but does the Bible encourage such a practice? Consider the following:
And He (Christ) is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. – Colossians 1:18
The verse does teach us that Jesus is to come first, that is what it means to “be preeminent,” but notice the preposition that begins that clause. He is to come first IN all things, not above all things. When we assign Jesus a place, even the top place, on our priority list, we fail to recognize His lordship in every facet of our lives.
When we give Him first place IN all things, however, we recognize that Jesus is the deciding factor in all of our priorities and decisions: how we appropriate our time, spend or invest our money, carry out our family responsibilities, perform at our jobs, play at our leisure, and serve at our church. The primary question we ask when we make decisions about our life becomes “where is Jesus in this, what does He want me to do, how can I serve Him?”
Let me suggest a new priority paradigm. Rather than thinking of your priorities as items on a list, think of your life as a wheel, your priorities as spokes in the wheel, but Jesus as the HUB. What are some ways you can begin reprioritizing your life today to put Jesus at the center of it all?
