What is Important
The important thing in life is determining what’s important. Other people will tell us what they think is important and try to make us feel that what they believe is important is also the most important thing for us. The things we read, and the things we see will tell us what to make important in our lives. We have to determine what is the most important thing to us and organize all the other priorities around that. Obviously, what God tells us through the Bible and His Spirit should be the most important thing to us, but even in that, there are many priorities God wants us to organize for ourselves within the Bible. “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). God has equipped us in unique ways to fulfill a specific priority He has given to us. If we have been uniquely called to take care of orphans, we should limit our time taking care of widows. If God has equipped us to take care of widows, we will have less time to take care of orphans. How we spend our time is important.
God calls us to realign our values around what's important to Him.
God knows the many concerns of the world, and He will, in time, put everything right into its place. In the meantime, however, He wants us to participate with Him in bringing the world back into order of serving His priorities. As we do what’s important to god, what is important to us will change. God waits for us to come into alignment with His value system and to adjust what is important to us. In Acts 6, the twelve disciples said, ““It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:2-4). The twelve knew it was important for them to preach the word of God. However, the men they appointed were not supposed to abandon the work of serving the tables to preach the word. The priority for them was serving the tables. God will have a specific priority for each of our lives.
What you do demonstrates what you value.
The twelve disciples and the subsequent church councils remained in a centralized location to hammer out the details of Christian theology. Meanwhile, Paul and his companions traveled to bring the gospel to other cities and nations. Both jobs were valuable, but both demonstrated a different value that God had given them. If Paul stayed and discussed theology, he would have missed out on the action of bringing the gospel to the Roman world. If the twelve spent their time traveling the Roman world, important matters of theology would have been overlooked. Both Paul and the twelve determined what God wanted them to value and then they acted in a corresponding manner. We first need to determine what God wants us to value, then we need to follow through with the actions of obedience. We cannot perform the actions of obedience until we have learned what God has made valuable to us. We need values and obedience to be in alignment. We need value-based obedience.