Someone once said, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." Priorities are necessary if we are to please God and fulfill our purpose for living. If we place too much time or emphasis on the trivial we may do so and the expense of the crucial. When we make the unimportant important, we cannot help but make the important unimportant.
What is the main thing? Does God give us direction here? How do we determine what is actually worth our most energetic attention? How do we discover what things God Himself would have us focus on and what He thinks is not worthy of our interest or passion?
We typically divide our activity into work and hobbies (vocation and avocation). Both are important for a healthy and well balanced life, but what about when we allow our hobbies to become too prominent? Can a benign and harmless side matter become malignant and injurious to us if we allow it to subtract from the # 1 thing in life? I think it can.
God gave us two great big commandments. He gave us two large and worthy goals to achieve: 1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. and 2. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. He went on to define your “neighbor” as including (The story of the Good Samaritan) those you may consider to be outside your comfort zone, yes those "other people".
Surely our personal time with God is the most important thing we do in any given day. This time alone will cause us to be more willing and able to perform the second great commandment, namely to love others. Whatever we allow to get in the way of performing these two great commandments is, at best, a poor display of priorities. At worst it is just plain old fashioned sin.
We who claim to be true followers of Jesus should be so in tune with Him that we do not substitute uniformity for unity. We do not substitute outward appearance for inward holiness and we do not fight and war to achieve recognition or place others in a bad light. "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." Phil. 2:3
When we have a healthy devotional life and when we worship as sincerely as we should, we will automatically gravitate toward our higher calling. The small things will mind their places and the vital things will take the places of honor that they alone deserve.
Quotes...
Forgiveness:
"He who has not forgiven an enemy has never yet tasted one of the most sublime enjoyments of life." Johann Kaspar Lavater
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" 'I can forgive, but I cannot forget', is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one." Henry Ward Beecher
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"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." Lewis B. Smedes
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"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." Mahatma Gandhi(Hey, Hindu or not, when he's right, he's right!)
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Faith:
"Faith is the daring of the soul to go father than it can see." William Newton Clark
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"Faith looks up the stairs that Love has made and looks out the windows which Hope has opened." C.H. Spurgeon
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"Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe." Augustine