So, What About YOUR Priorities?

Soon after Angie and David's sixth anniversary, the couple's home burned to the ground. Angi's first act, when they were allowed to hunt through the blackened remains, was to search for their photo albums. When she went to tell David that the pictures had indeed survived, she found him carefully placing in a box some charred, folded pieces of paper -- their courtship love letters.

"As I watched David kneeling there in the ashes," she says, "I was overcome with the certainty that we were meant for each other. There, in the face of our greatest tragedy, our first thoughts were not of our material loss but of the potential loss of these precious parts of our life together. As I knelt to help him with the letters, I was certain that we hadn't lost anything that mattered after all."

What about your priorities? Are you developing good ones? Establishing right priorities in life will make or break us. A good example of this is Psalm 112, which is in essence a psalm having to do with right priorities. In light of this psalm, it would benefit each of us to consider carefully the kind of priorities we establish in life.

For starters, I think that one should have a healthy fear of the Lord. According to the Disciple’s Study Bible, “the fear of the Lord appears to be a Hebrew idiom referring to a reverential attitude, which leads to obeying God’s law and revelation.” Simply put, the most important priority in life is to develop a reverential attitude toward God.

Speaking of priority, Psalm 112 in its entirety is concerned with the blessedness of the God-fearing man or woman, and is closely related to Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man . . . ,” and with Jesus’ Beatitudes found in Matthew 5:3-11. Fear of the Lord is the way that leads to happiness. One writer said, “Fear of God brings happiness.”

The late Matthew Henry gives us commentary on this passage. He has written, “It is not only reasonable that we should fear God, because His name is reverend and His nature is holy, but it is advantageous to us . . . Men can never begin to be wise till they begin to fear God.”

Certainly there are some men who claim to be wise, but according to Paul in Romans 1:22, “They become fools.” It was the fool who said in his heart, “there is no God.” Therefore, don’t you think that the wise thing to do is to establish right priorities? That is to say, have a healthy fear of God, obey Him fully, and be rightly related with Him forever.

One’s first and foremost priority is to trust Jesus as Lord and Savior. That is the first priority for the unsaved person. This is the starting point for an intimate relationship with the Father. Will you put your trust in Jesus today?

-Special thanks to Dr. Benjamin F. Woods

Scripture: Psalm 111:10-112:1b; Proverbs 1:7; Exodus 20:20; Psalm 25:12; Psalm 112:1; Psalm 112:1-10; Job 1:8.

Prayer:

Holy Jesus, every day
Keep us in the narrow way,
And when earthly things are past,
Bring our ransomed souls at last
Where they need no star to guide.
Where no clouds Thy glory hide. Amen

Have a blessed day,

Emily