People without priorities spend their time doing what is unnecessary. If you take a moment to think about it, most of what you do on a daily basis is not really necessary. In a similar way, absence of priorities causes individuals to "major" in the unimportant. If you have no priority, you wind up majoring in the minors. For some reason, most of us are easily distracted or enticed away from focusing on the most important matters in life. They concentrate on peripheral issues. They fail to show vision. Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law. Priorities help you in sharpening your vision so you can focus on the most important things. Without it you have no sense of direction and are apt to pursue whatever suits your fancy at the time. Consequently, the absence of priorities results in preoccupation with the unimportant. Not only do we focus on the unimportant, we become preoccupied with it, and have conferences on it until, by default, it becomes a de facto priority for us. Even then it is still the wrong priority.
What I have discovered is, preoccupation leads to investments, so absence of priorities causes us to invest in the less valuable. Who would invest in something that could produce only one percent return instead of something that guarantees a fifty percent return? Unless you know what is truly important, it is impossible for you to invest wisely. So the end result of the absence of priorities is wasted resources.
Another consequence of the absence of priorities is ineffective activity. No matter how busy you are or how much you believe you are accomplishing, if you are focused on the wrong thing or assignment, all your activity will count for nothing in the end. You will still be ineffective because you didn't do what you were supposed to do. Your first priority is to obey the Word of God's Constitution.
King Saul failed by not obeying God's command: And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”
So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the Word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.”
Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
Your first priority is to obey the Lord God's Word.
Proverbs 29:18 I Samuel 15:20-24
~~W.R. Luchie
What I have discovered is, preoccupation leads to investments, so absence of priorities causes us to invest in the less valuable. Who would invest in something that could produce only one percent return instead of something that guarantees a fifty percent return? Unless you know what is truly important, it is impossible for you to invest wisely. So the end result of the absence of priorities is wasted resources.
Another consequence of the absence of priorities is ineffective activity. No matter how busy you are or how much you believe you are accomplishing, if you are focused on the wrong thing or assignment, all your activity will count for nothing in the end. You will still be ineffective because you didn't do what you were supposed to do. Your first priority is to obey the Word of God's Constitution.
King Saul failed by not obeying God's command: And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”
So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the Word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.”
Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
Your first priority is to obey the Lord God's Word.
Proverbs 29:18 I Samuel 15:20-24
~~W.R. Luchie
