Part 1: Finding What Matters Most

Ready, Set… Life!
Finding What Really Matters

We find ourselves living today in a culture where so many things compete for the position of “top priority” in our lives. The list may include work, family, friends, money, health, status, education or a million other important things. To complicate matters, different seasons of our lives may juggle our list of priorities more often than we’d like. This can make it really difficult to manage our time and the attention we give to other people and other passions in daily life.The following may seem like a contradiction to what we have come to believe about our relationship to God. It most certainly is something that, at first glance, looks as if it panders to exactly the misplaced focus of our western culture and the “ME” generation we live in.

What would you think if I told you that what matters most… is YOU! That’s right. When put in its proper perspective, the value you assess of yourself places life and the things of God in just the right priority order. Now, I’m not speaking here of the kind of self love that makes you stand in front of the bathroom mirror and tell yourself how great you look. I’m also not writing about the self absorption that tells us we’re better than anyone else, or smarter, happier, wealthier, yada, yada, yada. (You know, you can ‘yada, yada, yada’ almost anything…)

On the contrary, the self love I want you to think about is the kind that God tells us about in scripture over and over. One of my favorite places to find this idea is in Isaiah 45:18

“For this is what the LORD says— he who created the heavens, he is God;He who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited— he says: "I am the LORD, and there is no other.” (NIV – emphasis added)

Isaiah tells us not just his own words, but the words of God who told Isaiah that He formed the world. Not to be a useless space, but to be inhabited. Well… by YOU. God made the earth with the express purpose that you and I, and everyone around us, dwell in it and inhabit its surface. When we know part of God’s purpose in creation, and how it relates to us, we can understand that we are valued by God. Before the great story of Jesus unfolded, before the coming return of the Lord to gather His children to Himself, God was already demonstrating His love for us by creating the earth FOR us. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a great expression of his love to us. And when you love something or someone, you know the true value they carry within themselves.

God is telling us that we matter to him. You are valued. And when you come to know this, you can begin to see how truly special you really are. And you can love yourself. Not in a vain, selfish manner. But as one who finds that they are precious in the sight of God. And that makes you precious indeed.

In his recent song “Everything Glorious”, David Crowder poses the question, “You make everything glorious and I am Yours. What does that make me?”

I hope you know the answer.

If you’ve missed the previous message you can click HERE to listen