Our priorities testify to our values, worth, importance, and reason for existence. The person who spends all his energy, time, resources, and thoughts on sports declares them to be the purpose of life.
Priorities determine what we will become. We transform into the image of the thing we worship. If competition, we become competitive. If beauty, we become vain. If leadership, we become controlling.
My dear readers, only when we worship God as the only incentive for our living can we do things well without destructive consequences. The Apostle Paul went from being a religious zealot, that climaxed in the destruction of Christians to an ardent worshiper of Jesus Christ.
“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss …that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:7, 10-11)
The difference between false worship and true is prioritizing the correct relationship. We, like Paul, need to prioritize Jesus Christ as the right relationship. Is it your desire to know God? Are you willing to count everything else as a loss?
It is not enough to know the teachings of Christianity; each person needs to know the One who calls men to Himself through those tenants. Life is about relationships, and the most important relationship of all is with the One who has been in relationship eternally – God the Trinity.
Paul wanted to know the power of Christ’s resurrection. There is a new life from the dead by identification with Christ in His resurrection. Apart from the relationship, there can be no identification with Christ. There can be no identification from afar; it must be up close and personal. “And this is eternal life, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)
My dear readers, only the most seriously devoted servants desire to know the sufferings of their master. Only they attain to the resurrection from the dead. I hope my readers will be there.