Setting Biblical Priorities

Christian Working Woman Transcript

Monday, May 07, 2007 - Setting Biblical Principles

Do you feel as though your life is flying by very fast, out of control, and you aren't doing anything really worthwhile with your time and energy? This seems to be one of the more common problems with which we working people all struggle. Someone has said that there's always time to do God's will, yet if we get our priorities confused, we may run out of time before we do the really important things. I want to look at the problem of conflicting priorities.

I believe we all need to define some long-term lifetime goals and priorities which set our daily sails so that on a daily basis we are guided by these higher priorities as we decide how to invest our time and energy.

How do we set these lifetime priorities? I remember speaking on priorities at a women's conference, and afterwards someone said to me, "I thought you'd give us a list of priorities, black and white, that would apply to us all. But you didn't do that. You made us think." Well, I couldn't do that, because the Bible doesn't do that.

There is no list that dictates exact priorities for each of us as Christians. God has made us unique, and within biblical guidelines, He directs us in various ways, custom designed for each person. Aren't you glad? God is very creative and He has made us all differently, and He is quite capable of guiding us individually for His good pleasure.

However, the Bible certainly does give us very clear principles to show us how to determine the priorities of our lives, and these definitely need to be understood and obeyed if we're to set the priorities for our lives as God would have us to. If we don't follow biblical guidelines, I can assure you that we'll get things mixed up and find ourselves chasing some rainbows, spinning our wheels, confusing our priorities, and losing control of our lives–missing the best that God has for us.

So, what we want to carefully consider this week are God's guidelines for setting priorities. Then, with that under our belt, we should be able to make some clear determinations about what should be on our to do lists and what should not.

Christians should not feel as though their lives are out of control. When our priorities are biblically based and our walk with God is consistent, we may be very busy at times, but we will have that quiet confidence that our sails are set appropriately and our priorities are in line.