Priorities #79

Are your priorities in the right order?  What would your friends and family say?  Is it time to rearrange them?  Maybe you need to turn your priorities upside down so they ultimately become right side up!

It’s easy to put your career, financial success and reputation over your family, friends and God.  In this episode of Finish Strong we examine the priorities of some of the greatest people throughout history.  They all shared the same number one priority.  

Learn what it is and discover how it will help you Finish Strong by listening to this episode.

Transcript

Dan Wheeler: 0:01

Have you ever heard someone say that person's priorities are all out of whack? Someone say that about you? What would God say about your priorities? These are life's big questions at the beginning of a new year, it's a great time to examine their life's priorities. I'm Dan Wheeler joined by Brian Rowland and Terry Steen. And we are the hosts of finish strong, we want to finish our lives in a way that would be pleasing to God. It's like a runner going for that finish line. That's when you really turn on all of your speed, to save it for that last push. And that's what we're about here. But we want to talk about priorities, because that kind of determines how we run our race every day, guys, we talk about what's at the top of someone's list, is it your job? Is it your family? Is it your house? Isn't your reputation? What are your priorities? I mean, it's really important if you don't have your priorities, right, your life's not gonna be right. Would you agree with that?

Terry Steen: 1:04

Yeah, definitely. And I do think that it seems like the various seasons of life that you're going through impact your priorities. That's a good and I know, as we'll talk, there's ultimate values that we need to make sure those are, are become our ultimate priorities. But when you have little children, when you're in the middle of your career, if you're just starting a career at the different seasons of life does impact your priorities. Would you agree with that, Brian?

Brian Roland: 1:36

Yep, I sure do. But I also think that if you what they used to say, Where's your heart lie, they say, look in your checkbook, and your credit card statements. And I think they will find out that that's where your priorities are as well. The one thing though, about priorities, before you can really make your priorities you have to have your heart right. And if your hearts in the right place, then you make your right priorities.

Dan Wheeler: 1:58

Yeah, boy, that reminds me of Matthew six, where Jesus is saying, you know, Lay not up for your treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, but lay up your treasures in heaven for where your treasure is, there will your heart be. And that's really good insight. You can tell a person's priorities by their spending habits by their checkbook. Boy, there's some great examples given in the Bible as to what a person's priorities are. One of the guys that gave some advice on that Terry was called the wisest man who ever lived King Solomon.

Terry Steen: 2:36

Yeah, it's interesting that you would give me that one, because Solomon and I have so much in common we can relate. So you know,

Dan Wheeler: 2:46

that kind of wasn't what I was after. We're gone. Oh, let's go with that. Yeah, sure.

Terry Steen: 2:54

Well, as we all know, Solomon wrote Proverbs, which is full of tons and tons of wisdom. But he also wrote Ecclesiastes. And if you read Ecclesiastes, you can tell it's a little bit late in his life. He was somewhat on the downhill slope, it appeared, he was starting to make some mistakes. But he pulled it together for the very end the last few verses, and he had it figured out, listen to what it says. For now, all have heard, here's the conclusion of the matter of his 12 chapters. Here's the conclusion. Fear God, and keep His commandments. For this is the whole duty of man. So if we will fear God, meaning we will reverence we will be in awe of we will bow down and worship, we will keep him the center of everything we do, and then keep His commandments. If we'll do those two things. Everything else falls in line. And by keeping His commandments, we know that we've got our life lined up with his word, that everything works for good in that process.

Dan Wheeler: 4:15

And the first and greatest commandment sets the tone, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, while thy soul will all thy mind. Yeah. You know, we were talking earlier, Brian about fearing God. And boy, that's the beginning of wisdom. Having that priority is number one. Right? So that was Solomon. And Paul had something to say about it. Brian? Yeah, he did. Crispino

Brian Roland: 4:40

Paul for writing his letters to the church, like in Corinth, and then the flip ends, the Philippi and he says, In Philippians, 310, I want to know Christ. That's good. And we all should do that. But then he says yes, to know the power of his resurrection, and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his dead. Have you looked at need to go away and let's pull back a little bit. But Paul was telling us is that he wasn't afraid to suffer. And that might not just be beatings in that. It's just you suffer every day when people were there, that what they know what you believe, and they will give you the time of day or they put you in a whole nother category. And that's okay. Because if you're, you're, you're suffering less Jesus suffered. I mean, they put him in that same situation, that same categories, but becoming like him in his death. What that just meant to me though, was that we're going to see him, because we're going to be like him, then we're gonna have a new body, we're gonna live with him and eternity forever. And I think that's what Paul's number one priority was at. But he, you know, Paul, he had things he wanted to do here on Earth First, and he had a mission, and he was on it. And I think if we use that as an example, then we can live our life like that, like Paul did, too. And given every last drop until the end until we time we see Christ face to face.

Dan Wheeler: 5:57

That's one of those verses while you read it. In the beginning, you're like, all right, I want to know about what the power of resurrection and then what fellowship and his sufferings must suffer, but they go hand in hand. And when God's your priority you're willing to suffer for because you know, it's very temporary suffering here on earth. Well, I'm gonna look at Mark, chapter 12, verse 30, and this is Jesus himself talking. And he says, And thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. Boy, that sounds like you're just really pouring it all out, you know, your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength. And then, of course, the second is like this name without shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. So that's the important thing, loving God first, making him your priority, and then loving others, like yourself. And the closer you get to God, the more like him, you start to act, and you start to behave. And we all need to make that a priority. And that is to know God better to get as close to him as we possibly can. And we do that through two things, reading and studying his Word and prayer. And guys, I think a lot of people get these little devotionals, or they have a calendar that has a verse on it, they quickly read it begin the day and they're like, Okay, Lord, thanks. Let's go. And you know, that's not really making him a priority. I feel it's important to really get close to the Lord and to do that at the beginning of every day.

Terry Steen: 7:51

Yeah, I agree it, I think, is Psalm 119. If you go it's a very, it's the longest chapter in the Bible. But you go and read through that. And it says, David's talking, Oh, how I love your law. It's my meditation all day. And it's he goes on and on about how important God's word is. Because I think the more you know God's Word, the more you know, God. If you want to know God, you need to know His word. Yeah. So Brian, let's

Dan Wheeler: 8:21

talk about knowing the word better. It's more than just reading the words, isn't it?

Brian Roland: 8:27

It's more than just reading the words, it's really taking a deep dive into the Bible. And yeah, I just did this this morning, I was just what I was reading. And when I was studying, I got three pages here of what I came up with on one little verse. I mean, we could do a little time but I want to tell you something about this, I just I chose the verse to look at is in Romans 323, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. It's simple verse, right? All have sinned and come short the glory of God,

Dan Wheeler: 8:54

even though it's three pages on that. Yeah. And I'll

Brian Roland: 8:57

tell you what, if you guys can see my Bible, as you can see it, but my mom, this is my mom's, and she's written all the way through it. And so I was taken to see what she had to put in there too. And she actually went back and, and entered a couple of verses begin with that she highlighted of it, so that she would, through the 20/21 to the 24th. But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify the righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, For all have sinned and fall short the glory of God and are all justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ. And I go, Okay, this, this really puts it together, just adding a couple of the verses, and really added on to that one verse for all of sin. But when I started looking in the in the Bible itself here, I have a study Bible and it started tip taking me to places to look at to where I can justify what he's saying here and confirm what he's saying. And a lot of it is Oh, wait there we says for all of sin. Well, the first question is what is sin. And so the Sin is transgression, and overstepping of the law, divine boundary between good and evil, it's iniquity and act inherently wrong, whether expressly forbidden or not. It's an air of departure from right it's missing the mark. It's a trespass intrusion of self will into the sphere of divine authority, it's lawlessness, it's unbelief. And I'm going okay, this is, this is what sin is. And then, so what it's income from it originated from Satan, and entered through Adam. It was and is universal, Christ alone, except it incurred the penalties of spiritual physical death. But sin has no remedy except, but in the sacrificial death of Christ. And sin is availed by faith and send may be summarized as threefold, and act, the violation of what obedience to the revealed will of God is a state and absence of righteousness is a nature and the knee toward God. So saying, all these things are coming out of just that one verse. And when I looked at it says, it tells me that I am a center, and the only way to be forgiven of my sins is through Jesus Christ, who was a sacrificial lamb for all our sins. That one verse, that's what it means to me.

Dan Wheeler: 11:13

And that's, you know, using another source using your mom's Bible, using some commentaries. There's so many sources out there, right. And, you know, when when I read, I asked myself, Okay, what does this passage say? And then I asked, What does it mean? But then more importantly, I try to guess what does it say to me? And what does it mean to me? And, Terry, I'm gonna save you for last on this success, because I know you've got a kind of a different acronym that you use, but it pretty much says the same thing. But I was looking at Romans 838, and 39, which are two of my all time verses, because it talks about Christ's love, and how it will never leave us. I mean, we can't get away from it. And you read it through it. It says, For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present or things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So that's what the passage says. And then I started getting into what does it mean? And my first question was, why would Paul start with death? When he's talking about things that separate us from God? And the answer is, death is the great separator. It's the one the final thing that separates us from our loved ones. So Paul just comes out boom, with the biggest one, and then it goes to life's all your experiences in life, all your hurts your failures in life, those can't separate you from God, and then says, nor angels. And it's fun as looking at those two words. And I got to thinking, Well, how many angels are there? How many types of angels can there be? And I got into the study of angels that there's a nine fold celestial hierarchy, and I won't go into all of them, but basically, angels are at the bottom, and then there's archangels, and there's principalities and then the highest angels are cherubim, and seraphim. And when you look back in Genesis, God placed the chair of them with a flaming sword to guard the tree of life after he, the way to the tree of life history kicked man out of the garden. And so he goes into, you know, angels a spiritual power nor nor principalities, you know, sometimes principalities can mean the dominion of darkness, you know, Satan, they say, is the prince, the power of the air, so angels, principalities, powers, none of those things. So he goes from death and life into kind of the spiritual realm. And then it goes into time. You know, neither things right now, or things in the future can separate us so time can separate us then it goes into space, nor height, nor depth, wherever you are physically, nor any other creature, he covers everything there shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So what does that mean? To me? That means that even though I've sinned, even though I felt the Lord, there's been times when I've turned my back on him when I knowingly did wrong. He never left me. Yeah, he inks on tenaciously Yeah. And I'm so thankful for that. And that those two verses alone should make us want to give him everything and and serve Him, that kind of love. That is never going to let you go and so You know, when you study and you get into in depth studies like that, it just opens up so much, doesn't it? Yeah, I

Terry Steen: 15:05

just think it's helpful that we each give an example of how we approach studying God's word because there's so many people out there that really, maybe don't have a routine or don't have a process for doing more than reading a devotional or reading the scripture of the day or that type of thing. And I think it's so important that there be some variety in what we do and read and that we have a routine where we're, we have the energy to and not be distracted and have enough time to really effectively do it. I was

Dan Wheeler: 15:42

gonna say, that's the key time spending the time to dig in there. And I, I did use a couple commentaries. Matthew, Henry's commentary is one and then and then I like to spend some time just thinking on my own and saying, Okay, can I get my head around this? What does this mean to me?

Terry Steen: 15:59

Yeah. And the process I use is one that we have kind of incorporated in our church, and it's called soap SOA P. And that's the acronym. But it's basically the Scripture, you find the scripture that you're going to read and study. And then the O is observation. You're observing what's taking place in that scripture. A is for the application, how can that be applied to my life. And then p is the prayer. It's the meditation, it's asking God to allow what took place through that scripture, and how we applied it to effectively be part of our life. And so I was thinking, you know, we talked about John three, the third chapter of John, and if, let's say, you did that for the day. So you read the chapter. We all know John 316, what an incredible verses that is. But you know what God might have picked another verse that he wants to penetrate your heart for on that day. So as you read through, as I read through that, the one that jumped out at me was verse 30, it was further down where John was kind of talking about his how he and Jesus interacted, and verse 30s, was saying, He must increase, I must decrease. And John was talking to his disciples, and they, and they were disciples of John there, then there were disciples of Jesus. So the reality is, there could have been competition there, just like churches today and ministries today and Christians today. But no, John didn't do it. So my observation is, John set the Mark High, he set the example, between pride and humility. He knew he needed to step back, he knew that Jesus was the one who needed to be magnified and amplified. So John took that humble role. So that's my observation, then the application is obviously, okay, Terry, where in your life? Do you need to work on your pride? Where are those areas in your life? Is it with your wife? Is it with friends? Is it in social media? Where can you apply this scripture and work at being a more humble person? And then of course, that would be my prayer, for the right attitude and humility in my life and, and not having pride. So that's another good option. If you're looking for different ways to enhance your Bible study. Give it to skin soap, scripture, observation, observation, application and prayer.

Dan Wheeler: 18:52

Prayer. Yeah, and let's talk about prayer. Sometimes I pray before I read the word and I asked God to give me wisdom and open up something that I need and and I pray after, but prayer and scripture reading go hand in hand, as far as our relationship with God think that you know, when we have our quiet time when we set that time aside, we have to have time to take our requests and our petitions the Lord, but also to listen. And I think listening is the hardest thing. Sometimes we start because your mind starts wandering and think about all the things you have to do that day. And before long. You're not listening but to just say, Lord, to speak to me and wade in His presence. Do you guys have any clues for doing that or how you like to do that?

Terry Steen: 19:36

Well, Romans 1017 says faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of God. So we know that if we want faith, if we want to increase our faith, we have no choice but to hear. And so many times people think they're waiting to hear this audible voice from God or be woken up in a dream or whatever. But So much of hearing from God comes back to his word, and letting the Holy Spirit enlighten you with it.

Brian Roland: 20:07

But think through them taking that time, that's like meditating on the Word there. And taking that time, in a quiet time with God and listening for him. You may not hear something right there, it may not be so like you said, Dan, my audible and you mean and your prayer and go on your way, but something during that day, my trigger is something that somebody might say to you, it's like, oh, that's, that's the answer that God's trying to give me. You know, it might be something that you receive in the mail could be any little things, that he is actually speaking to you. But if you're aware of it, and you're keeping your eyes and ears tuned spiritually, then you're gonna get messages from him and other ways to,

Dan Wheeler: 20:44

absolutely. I know, a verse that I've worked on my whole life is Philippians, four, six, where it says, Be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving. let your requests be made known to God, you know, it's so easy to panic and worry first, and pray last. Or often say, Well, all we can do is pray. Hey, guess what, all you can do is pray. Prayer is a lot. It's all you can do. And but boy, just remember not to panic, not to be anxious, talk it over with God, he knows. And I've struggled with that I tend to go to the worry side first,

Terry Steen: 21:29

and anxiety, and worry. And those kinds of things tend to raise their head when our life is not lined up with the right priorities. So I want to make sure everyone listening doesn't, you know, and when we think about priorities, we think about our day to day life and how we fill every hour of the day. And we haven't specifically addressed that as much as we've addressed the number one priority of hearing God, knowing God, praying, reading His word. And when we do that, those other priorities will kind of line up. The Lord will help you establish your daily priorities with your family, and your job and your friends and your money and all those things. And as you rest in that, knowing God's directing it, that's where the peace comes. That's where the anxiety and the worry dissipates. Because you can have confidence to know that your priorities are lining up with his word.

Dan Wheeler: 22:37

Very true. You know, I talked about in hurricane of love and through the journey with Beth how, boy, the moment you hear stage four cancer, your priorities change. Yeah. And I wrote in the book that my priorities were flipped upside down. But ultimately, right side up as one of those guys that spent way too much time at work was always putting in extra hours, the extra tasks, the extra project. And when that happened, of course, God was first but getting Beth better was right there and being with her, was right there at the top of my list. I didn't want to be anywhere else. So sometimes God uses things to change our priorities doesn't get them back in line. And if you're really seeking Him and you're reading the Word, and you're praying, he's going to help you, as you said, Terry, to get those priorities back. Right. Right. Sure. So the ultimate question I think I might have referred to this in our last podcast is not what will we say to the Lord? But what will the Lord say to us? Boy, if you think about that often, think about that every day, think about is this what I'm about to do? Going to please the Lord? Is that something where he's going to say, Hey, I was proud of you. At that moment. We want to hear well done, we want to know that. We truly did place him first our lives.

Brian Roland: 23:59

That's the ultimate statement. Northman thing you want to hear. I know, I was thinking about my mom, my dad and what it must have meant to them to hear God say that, because I know what the lives they live. And I know that there was just this straight shot to heaven for him. You know, you think about think about it. I want to hear those same words.

Terry Steen: 24:16

Yeah, yep. We all do, don't we? Yeah.

Dan Wheeler: 24:18

What a legacy our parents left us. I've been thinking about my mom a lot lately, too, and what she would say or what her advice would be to me I can hear her voice and, and I know that too, I just know that she heard the Lord say, well done. Yeah, man. She was she was all about prayer and reading the Bible. So we're talking about these priorities. Her priority was knowing God and then to make sure your children did. And I know both of your parents were the same way.

Terry Steen: 24:47

It's interesting. You say legacy, Dan, I know we're running out of time, but establishing good priorities lead to a lasting and a positive legacy, that's for sure.

Dan Wheeler: 24:58

Yeah. It's Just before we went on today KEARSON called me and said, Dad, I got this camp I want to Brooke and Gavin to go to and she said the thing that drew me is it says they start every session out with worship and praise and I thought good to hear. Yeah, see legacy continue. Well, man priorities. object we probably could do about 10 podcasts on this but good to do it at the start of the year. Let's get our priorities right to know God, the power of his resurrection to love Him above all else with our heart, our soul, our mind and our strength. We are so glad that you joined us We hope you'll recommend this podcast to others. Maybe give us a review and join us next time for another edition of finished strong God bless.

John Matarazzo: 25:48

Thank you for listening to finish strong for more information about finish strong and fearless faith. Check out their website ef faith.org. Make sure that you rate and review this podcast to help more people accomplish their God given purpose so that together we can finish strong