Priorities

Over the last couple of days, I've been thinking about how I wanted to start off the blog in this new year, and I have landed on the place I think we all need to start: Priorities.

Our priorities are out of whack. No, I'm not just talking about Llano, nor am I just talking about the firing and hiring of Coaches, spending millions of dollars to cut contracts (Looking at You, University of Texas), but our life priorities are out of whack.

We spend so much time on things that are fleeting. I am reminded of the Writer of Ecclesiastes when he says: 

"Meaningless. Meaningless! says the teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is Meaningless." ~Ecclesiastes 1:2

Wow, what a way to start off the new year, Pastor Bryan.

I know. I know.

But what the Teacher is saying here is that this world is fleeting; this world is not always going to be here.

I have started reading through the Bible as a personal practice. I'm utilizing a reading plan that does some jumping around in Scripture, but allows me to take the Bible a little bit at a time and pray on it, meditate on it, study it, and grow in it. It is my hope that by the end of this year, I will have learned new things that I never knew before.

This morning, I was reading through Genesis 8-11, which is the second half of the story of Noah. After the flood, when Noah and his sons had come out of the Ark, we read about a pretty amazing exchange where God makes a covenant with Noah to never destroy the earth.

Now, I have heard this story hundreds of times, and even read it many more, but it has never dawned on me the importance of the Language until this morning. God is talking to Noah about not "cursing the ground" because of humanities sinfulness because he knows that "the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth (Gen. 8:21)."

But what stands out to me is the beginning of Genesis 8:22.

"As long as earth endures, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease"

As long as earth endures? So you mean that the earth can only endure so much? The earth has a time limit?

Why, yes it does.

Even in the Book of Revelation, we read about God creating a new heaven and a new earth, for the old has passed away.

So, let me ask you this question: What really matters? What is your priority?

If it is one thing we (should) have learned over this last year is our priorities. What is most important to us?

Our number one priority should be God. Our number one priority as parents should be the relationships our kids have with Jesus. Our number one priorities of members of the community should be being the hands and feet of Christ so that others may come to know him through our Love. Our number one priority as Christians should be to Love God, and Love Others.

So, ask yourself: Where do you find your treasure? Where is your heart? What are your priorities?