To Encourage You

Luke 9:59-62 “To another he said, ’Follow me.’ But he said, ’Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ And Jesus said to him, ’Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Yet another said, ’I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ’No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”

What’s the most important thing to you in all the world? What, above everything else, should be given the highest priority? And how do we know what our true priorities are? If you are wondering about this, might I recommend a few tests.

One is to look at your time. What do you give it to? We all have 24 hours each day. How do we use that time? Then look at your checkbook and credit card statements. Our priorities become obvious as we tally the use of our money. What do you talk about? The Bible says that “of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45), i.e., what our heart is full of will come out of our mouth.

So, are our priorities what they should be? And how do we know what they should be? Well, for the Christian, our example is always Jesus Christ. What was His priority? What did he spend His time doing and what did He talk to everyone about more than anything else? A reading of the gospels will make it clear that Jesus’ greatest priority was the kingdom of God. It’s what He always talked about. It’s what He demonstrated with His life. It was all about the kingdom. In the mind of Christ, it wasn’t anything on earth that was the most important thing in all the earth. It was the kingdom of God. It was so important that He gave His life on a cross to make it possible for people to enter it. It was from the kingdom of God that the earth was created. God made it and He is its great King.

We are told that heaven is God’s throne and the earth is his footstool (Isaiah 66:1). His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom (Psalm 145:13). It’s something that existed before the world was created and it will endure after this world is gone. It is such an all-important thing that God became a man so that He could bring its message to us, talking to us about it face to face. It’s a kingdom that some will enter and some will not, and the consequences of this are the most important thing in every person’s life. It’s such a priority that in the verses above from Luke 9 Jesus said that to give priority to anything else over it, whether it be a parent’s funeral, or our closest friends, is to miss its significance to us. If anything else in all the world is more important than the kingdom of God to us, then, as Jesus said, we are not fit for it. We aren’t a part of it.

So, are you a child of this kingdom (Matthew 18:3)? Have you entered it? Is your priority in life anything but this? If so, then you are living life while missing life’s most important thing. And the only way to enter it is to be born again. Jesus clearly said, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God . . .You must be born again” (John 3:3-7). One can gain the whole world, but lose their own soul, and Jesus warned that to do so is to gain nothing at all (Mark 8:36-38), for that person will miss the kingdom.

So, do you care about the kingdom? Is it your top priority? How much do you think about it and talk to others about it? How much of your expenditures of time and money reflect a kingdom focus above all else? It was Jesus’ greatest priority, and He urged us repeatedly to make it our greatest priority as well. May God help us to believe what He told us, for He alone has the true perspective on what most matters to each and every person on the face of the earth.