What Matters Most

(Originally written for Douglas County Publishing: Pastor's Meditation September 8 issue)

As the new school year hits its stride, many families enter back into the mode of juggling a million things every day.  Parents have to get their kids (and themselves) ready in the morning and get them on the bus or to school on time.  Children and young people attend to the work involved with their classes and interact with one another.  Athletes and teams squeeze in practices and games.  By the time each person gets home, most just want to relax.  But in the mix of things, meals need to be made or gone out to get, and chores need to be done around the house which has somehow gotten messy once again.  Everyone is trying to find a few moments just to sit and catch their breaths.

When we turn on the TV, flip through magazines, or surf the internet, we are bombarded with advertisements.  Companies tell us that their newest product will make our lives easier.  If we will download certain apps or programs, they will increase our efficiency.  What often happens if they do accomplish what they are intended to do?  We find more things to stuff into our already too full lives!  Things may move at a slightly slower pace in small towns like ours than in big cities, but the problem of looking for how to get more hours from each day is just as prevalent.

In Matthew 19:16-30, we find the account of Jesus dealing with a rich young man.  This individual wanted to know what he could do to guarantee entrance into eternal life.  As they were talking, he told Jesus that he has obeyed all of the commandments and needed to know what he still lacked.  Verses 21 through 24 tell us where the man’s heart was at.  “Jesus answered, ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me.’  When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.  Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Christians often read this as being specifically about wealth.  The key lesson is that we ought to be careful about how attached we are to our money, our material possessions, and our financial well-being.  That is what Jesus was explicitly addressing as this person’s problem.  Alongside of that, we often think of 1 Timothy 6:9-10 where Paul cautioned Timothy to be on guard because of the temptation that riches do lead many into.  There we find the well-known verse: “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” 

Back in Matthew 19, though, might the issue Jesus addressed be bigger than simply the idolizing of this man’s wealth?  What follows in verses 25 and 26 is this: “When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, ‘Who then can be saved?’  Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (v. 25-26).  What Jesus addressed in the life of the young man who came to him was that his money was what filled his heart.  That is what mattered most to him!  He could live well with morals that matched the Law, but if his heart did not match up with God’s, then he would not know true eternal life.

(Photo cred: Marlon Malabanan "STOP!")

Think about how we spend our days.  Raising children, caring for our spouse, learning in school, using the talents God has given us in sports and music and drama, working on farms and in businesses to supply good and services.  All good things!  We can be compassionate, loving, honest, even gracious people in all of them, but have any or all of those things become what matters most to you?  That question requires that we compare to how we spend time with God.  We can spend hours learning about wonderful things in God’s creation, hours practicing sports or instruments, hours working the soil, but have we made time with our Creator and Savior in and apart from those things?  Or, like the young man in Matthew 19, has the stuff that fills our daily lives pushed our Lord from the most important place?

Take time to examine your life, your priorities, and the way you spend your time this week.  If spending time with our God in studying his Word, in prayer, and in worship with his people is lacking, is He truly what matters most to you?  Rather than trying to stuff time with Him into everything else that is already filling your day, consider if your relationship with Him and what He can offer is worth lightening the load in another area of your life.  He is waiting for you to follow Him.  He will help you, by his grace, to be what matters most.