“What’s important?”

Life is a scramble among competing priorities. The time, energy, and money available for the opportunities and demands that come our way are too limited.

And God gets this. Which is why he’s so clear in calling us to what really matters. He is an ultimate “Who” among a myriad of “whats.” We were made by him and for him. And so he offers himself to us as life’s ultimate priority—as the creator who gives meaning to his creation.

When Jesus was asked about this, he answered, “The most important is, Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’” [Mk 12:29-30] Or, elsewhere, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…” [Mt 6:33]. The repetition of “all” alongside “love” represents an inclusive calling. It’s the sort of emphasis that defines wedding vows. It’s what shapes a desired career. Our choices—our priorities—display what we love.

Is Christ’s call negotiable? Won’t a weekly Bible study or Sunday sermon satisfy him? With full devotion assigned to professional Christians—to those who are paid to be religious?

No. God is devoted to us with a whole heart; and, with the love of a caring creator, he invites the same in return. Anything less would be like newlyweds deciding just to meet up at a coffee shop once or twice a week after their honeymoon. It’s nonsense.

One feature of God’s wholehearted love is his involvement in our lives—his providence. I’m unpacking my books after my move to Idaho, and I just rediscovered J. B. Phillips’ old classic, Your God Is Too Small. The title says it all. God is greater than our biggest thoughts. He named the stars. He knows each sparrow; and every hair on our heads is numbered. He knows our thoughts: “You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether” [Ps 139:3-4].

For believers this has a clear focus in Ephesians 2:10. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

So as we live out our lives, we discover what we’re made for. Everything is shaped by God’s love. A love that begins in the triune union and communion that he pours it out in our hearts. And then we’re able to respond in line with Christ’s prayer of John 17: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

A key question in life, then, is to discover how our communion with Jesus works in practice. Adam stumbled here when he disregarded God’s clear words in Eden and accepted the Serpent’s words instead. This tragedy set up God’s aim to reestablish that broken bond. It comes through words. So he tells us who he is; and what he calls us to. The Bible is crucial. As we embrace Jesus as the living Word, and receive his written words, we “hear” him more and more clearly. In a spiritually engaged cognitive process. It’s part of “seeking” him.

Another question, then, is the state of our courage. If the Bible is reliable, and if the Spirit of God is active—both are true—we can be sure that Jesus is ready to carry us forward. To move us beyond a mundane life into a vision that goes beyond immediate comforts and entertainments. He calls us into his own eternal fellowship with promises of unmeasured joy and delight.

What does God’s love offer? Here’s a modest analogy. I once lived in London and had regular access to the British Library. Which is to say, to virtually every book published in English. Think of a good local library and then multiply their holdings by many multiples. Of course, God’s self-giving is a different sort of wealth, but it points to an unimaginable wealth.

Yet knowing God needs a revolution, not an enlargement. Another inadequate analogy is the creation of telescopes. And then think of how much more observers get to see with the Webb telescope than Galileo ever saw through his first pair of lenses.

A heart change is needed to resolve our moral blindness. Without God opening the “eyes of our heart”—Paul’s imagery in Ephesians 1:18—humans don’t grasp God’s goodness. The blindness of spiritual skepticism—started in Genesis 3 with, “Did God really say…?”—remains active.

So, despite the goodness of God and the beauty of Eden, Adam’s fall caused him to be curved-in-on-self. In sin he felt naked and ashamed as God came into the garden. And even now our awareness of God is distorted by self-concern. Good becomes evil, and vice versa. God’s call, for complete dependence on him, was reversed by Adam’s ambition to be like God. And following that impulse, an ambition to be self-righteous blinds us to Christ’s gift of righteousness.

The key to faith, then, is to see Jesus as our constant, caring companion. As the basis for our transformation when we trust him to work in us. This embraces the Spirit’s activity—recognizing, “Lord, apart from you I can’t do anything!” We begin to expect his gracious work in us to become a sustained pathway for life.

It also means sacrificing many other ambitions that once captured our spiritual gaze. As we “abide” in his words we hear his heart for us. And with that we also hear the needs of others. We all have unique sensitivities to spiritual opportunities—for ways to build up others—and that’s where growth in Jesus takes off. As we love him, we find ourselves loving others. These, then, are the “good works” of Ephesians 2:10.

So, what’s truly important? One thing above all else. To know and love Jesus. Wholeheartedly, actively, and persistently. Above all else, so that other things exist in the context of that bond. Just as a newborn child relies on his or her mother for everything in life, we learn to live “in Christ.” And then life unfolds into an adventure that lasts into eternity.

This is eternal life.

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2 Comments

  1. Wes Sanders

    This was good for me to read and reflect on during this very “busy” summer week. A chance to refocus on what’s important!

  2. R N Frost

    Thanks, Wes. Sitting with you and your family by the pool recently really displayed ‘what’s important.’ A treat for me!

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