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Priorities Are Worship:
How Priorities Reveal God By In those days there was
no king in every man did that which was right in
his own eyes. Judges ( At
first glance, the title of this article appears strange in both syntax and
meaning; but think about it and I'm sure you'll see that priorities are worship. For example a person who claimed to want
to serve the Lord Jesus Christ but spent 3/4 of their waking hours standing
before a mirror putting on makeup, then spent the other 1/4 of their time
eating would be easily dismissed as one whose priorities proved that the only
god they truly worshipped was the one they saw in the mirror. Since worship is nothing more than showing
God how we feel about Him, the priorities we choose are the essence of our
true worship of God, all formalities notwithstanding. The
example above is so perfectly clear and indisputable because the Bible makes
it a priority to define God's priorities.
Even though there might be serious dispute about what the Bible
teaches about God's priorities, no one would teach that the Bible wants
people to make it a priority to spend all their time looking into a mirror or
feeding their faces. That agreed we are still left with finding some understanding and agreement about what the Bible teaches about God's priorities if we want to make it a priority to worship the God of the Bible together in Spirit and in Truth. IMPORTANCE OF PRIORITIES All
it takes for Christians to become the principle agents of hell and death and
destruction is for Christians to do as the Pharisees of Jesus Christ's time
did and ignore what the bible teaches about God's priorities. We can learn everything else the Bible
teaches yet if we fail to understand what the Bible teaches about God's
priorities, it will be worse than learning nothing about God at all. It
will be worse because people who know nothing about God can do nothing to deceive
people about God because their ignorance of God will be self-evident to any
observer. It is the people who look
and act and think they know about God but in fact do not understand God's
priorities--people like the Pharisees--that literally lead the whole world
astray. For this reason, Jesus Christ
made His primary enemies on earth the Pharisees, who were thought by the
world to be servants of God but who actually failed to follow God's
priorities at all and ended up crucifying and killing God incarnate. GOD'S
PRIORITIES EXPLAINED BY GOOD SAMARITAN Jesus
Christ did everything words can do to use the story of the Good Samaritan to
explain God's priorities so any person can understand them. Luke
begins the story like this: Luke 10:25And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying,
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? 26He said unto
him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?
27And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy
mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. 28And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
29But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is
my neighbour? (It is most significant
that this encounter with a lawyer is very similar to another encounter with a
lawyer recorded in Matthew 22: 35ff.
The similarity in the two passages is seen that Jesus Christ gave
essentially the same answer in both places.
The only difference in the passages was the question asked. In the Matthew passage the lawyer asked,
"Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law." The second questioner specified what the
first questioner only implied when he asked What shall I do to inherit
eternal life. Both questions were
designed to get Jesus Christ to talk about God's priorities. Both lawyers were trying to get Jesus
Christ to commit himself to answering the most important question that can be
asked to God: What should I do first? DEFINITION
OF NEIGHBOR SECOND IN IMPORTANCE ONLY TO DEFINITION OF GOD The
man had to ask Jesus to define his neighbor because, even though every
"expert in the law" knew what it meant to love God, there was then,
as there is now, some lack of certainty about the referent for the word
"neighbor." The lawyer knew
that how Jesus Christ defined neighbor would determine whether Jesus Christ
could be accused of a crime against God. Christians today
have fallen into a trap the lawyer originally tried to spring on Jesus
Christ. People don't think about the
question that was asked Jesus that day so long ago. Everybody knows
who our neighbor is. If there is any doubt, all we have to do is open a
dictionary and we'll find our definition: "a person who lives near another…a
fellow man; as, love thy neighbor…any person…" (Webster's Unabridged). False Definition of Neighbor Is At Root Of Christian Failure To
Understand or Obey God's Priorities Jesus Christ did
not define neighbor the way the dictionary does. One of the fundamental
causes of our social disintegration can be traced to the fact that Christians
do not understand how Jesus defined neighbor. Not only did Jesus' definition
of neighbor not make it into our dictionaries, neither did it make it into
our churches or our hearts. To prove what I'm saying, ask people who call
themselves Christians how they define neighbor and they will give you the
dictionary definition, not Jesus' definition. And the name of Jesus is
blasphemed today because of it. When asked,
"Who is my neighbor?" Jesus defined the word, not by looking in a
dictionary, but by telling a story, a story about a Good Samaritan. It is a
story so well known that hardly anyone actually thinks about the meaning of
the story anymore. Like Little Red Riding Hood and Chicken Little and Humpty
Dumpty, the story Jesus told has become a part of our folklore and like much
of our folklore the original meaning of the story has been utterly forgotten
by us folks. Read the story of
the Good Samaritan (Luke Do you think
Jesus had no specific meaning to communicate when he chose a person who was
dying as the referent for the word neighbor?
Do you think it was merely coincidence that he chose a dying person as
his example of what the word neighbor means?
Do you believe we could just as easily substitute any other person for
the example chosen by Jesus Christ and we would still be obedient to God's
definition of priorities? If you think
that, you must think that Jesus Christ tossed words around with no more care
for their meaning than a child learning to talk. No Christian
would blaspheme the Lord Jesus Christ like that. It's No Excuse, but… What
the Bible teaches about priorities is hard to understand, so hard, in fact,
that some people cannot grasp them at all.
I Cor 2:4But
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned. But
almost everybody can understand just enough about priorities to get them in
danger of being sent to hell by God. Anyone who can count and understand simple
arithmetic understands enough about priorities to be held accountable for
refusing to obey God's definition of priorities. For example, go through the Bible and
notice the myriad times you see the words first, last, second, etc. All those number words are signals that
priorities are being discussed. If you
can’t tell the difference between first and last, or one and two, you won’t
have a clue about anything the Bible is trying to teach about
priorities. Since most people learn to
count and learn simple arithmetic, failure to learn arithmetic is not what
makes understanding God’s priorities difficult. WHERE BIBLICAL THEORY
BECOMES DISCIPLESHIP OBEDIENCE NO
MEANING WITHOUT APPLICATION Look
around and see how today's Christian leaders stand up under the scrutiny of
God's word. What you will see about
the priorities chosen by Christian leaders will help you understand how
confusion and fear came to rule this generation of Christians. To say it another way, all this talk about
priorities is without meaning until we see how the talk is applied in
action. Words can lie but actions
speak loud and clear. It is at the
point of application through action that what we really believe about God's
priorities is revealed. To
put things in perspective, let's start at the top. Take for example President George W. Bush
and all those Christian leaders who hold him up as an example of
appropriately applied Biblical priorities. Does
President George W. Bush act like he has a priority to protect the least
among us who are dying the way he would want his life, or the lives of his
daughters, to be protected?
The cover story of Newsweek for the But
listen to the Christian leaders and teachers of this nation and you will hear
the most well established (read well-funded) leaders holding President George
W. Bush up as a political leader who embodied Biblical priorities. Virtually the entire Christian
establishment has rallied behind #43 as the epicenter from which God's will
on earth is emanating. I
can already hear throngs of Christians complaining, "How dare Neal
Horsley say President Bush is not defending the unborn. Didn't he sign the bill protecting the victims
of abortion who are born alive!" Think
about what is happening! The President
of the Let
me amplify this point with evidence. What I have to now say about Chuck Colson is hard
for me to say because Chuck Colson helped me receive many wonderful
opportunities to study Scripture and to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and I
love him because He is my brother in the Lord Jesus Christ. (This link expands the
point for those who need those details). But this article is about God's
priorities so I would dishonor my duty to the Lord to ignore it when Chuck
Colson violates God's priorities. When Jerry Falwell and Chuck Colson held
Bush up as a good example of a Christian leader they projectile vomited lies
that did as much to confuse people about God's priorities as anything anybody
could have done. Bush is no more an example of Christian priorities than Bin
Laden is an example of Christian evangelism. WHAT IT MEANS TO BE BUSH-WHACKED
BUSH
SUPPOSED TO BE THE WATCHMAN "But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet
to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them,
that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman
accountable for his blood." Ezekiel 33. Bush
is to be held accountable for the priorities he reveals in this nation. As President of the Bush reveals his God by the priorities he chooses; so do we all. The priorities President George W. Bush is
revealing to the world are exactly the priorities the world understands all
too well. As Jesus Christ did in
Matthew 25, Bush is showing the world that he is identifying with a
particular group of people. But is
Bush identifying with the least among us as Jesus Christ commanded? President
George W. Bush is identifying with the least among the children of the people
who stir the political cauldron in the While
all the born citizens in the Look
closely and if you have eyes that see you will see that the priorities Bush
is revealing have absolutely nothing to do with the priorities Jesus Christ
commanded His people to implement as their living worship of God. Bush reveals the priorities of this
world. As they had done with previous
"Christian" Presidents, when Christian leaders allowed George W.
Bush and the world to believe that Bush represented the priorities of Jesus
Christ, this generation of Christians was taken into captivity, into slavery
to sin. WORDS OF JESUS
CHRIST NOT TO BE IGNORED OR TWISTED "Beware lest any man spoil you [take you into
captivity, NIV] through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of
men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." Colossian
2:8 President
George W. Bush is only one example of Christian leadership in this nation in
this generation. What about the
other Christian leaders who head the myriad Christian organizations in this
nation? Are the actions of this
generation of Christians helping people understand the priorities defined by
Jesus Christ? I watch thousands
of babies being led to the slaughter in the BIBLICAL PRIORITY
PRINCIPLES 1. GOD'S PRIORITIES ARE OPPOSITE OF OUR
NATURAL PRIORITIES What
makes God's priorities really hard to understand is they are the opposite of
the world’s priorities. In other
words, the Bible teaches that what people naturally think would be true about
priorities is exactly the opposite of what God actually teaches about
priorities. Jesus Christ summarized
this point when He said, “But many that are first shall be last; and the last
shall be first.” Mathew 2. GOD'S CHOICE OF PRIORITIES IS SINGLE Not
only does God turn the worlds' priorities upside down. He demands that those who serve Him choose
to obey His priorities exactly or be counted among those who will be rejected
by Him. 3.
UNDERSTANDING GOD'S PRIORITIES REQUIRES DEFINING "LEAST" The
words Jesus Christ uses in defining God's priorities make it clear that, as
far as serving human beings is concerned, God will always have only one first
priority and that priority will always be the one that qualifies as the
least. Since that is the case, we must
make understanding "least" our first priority as well. Least
is a term from simple arithmetic. The
concept of least is used in discussing an array of numbers, or a list of
items of any type. In any given array there
will always only be one item or number that can be accurately called the
"least." (If the preceding sentence
were to be given the emphasis it deserves because of the importance it has in
explaining this article, the font would be eight times larger and flash different
colors constantly so the words would be etched into the reader's
consciousness like an implanted microbe chip.) For instance, in a list containing the
numbers 2, 3, 5, 2 and 7. The single
number 2 will be the least even though there are multiple instances of that
number. It is that one number that
will be the least in that array and there is nothing in the universe that
logically or truthfully defines a different "least." Unless
we grasp the point that there can never be more than one "least" we
can never hear what Jesus Christ was trying to tell us in Matthew 25. In that passage, Jesus Christ is discussing
an array composed of categories or types of human beings. He tells us that as we do it unto the least
in that array containing all the categories of human beings, we do it unto
Him. 4. SHEEP FROM GOATS SEEN IN WHO PROTECTS THE
DYING Notice that every instance of person Jesus Christ identified with is a person who, if left untreated, will die. With the exception of the person in prison, every instance refers to physical death, not simply spiritual death. Matthew 25:31ff, " 31When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: 32And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: 33And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. 34Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. 41Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: 42For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: 43I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. 44Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? 45Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. 46And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. So
in addition to the priority principle Jesus revealed in His story about the
good Samaritan, Jesus Christ revealed another Priority Principle in Matthew
25: not only are we required to make our first priority the reaching out
to people who are dying, within that category of people dying we are to reach
out to the least before we reach out to any of the others. In other words, by identifying Himself
with the least of these, and then by further amplifying His priorities by
telling us about the Good Samaritan, Jesus Christ created a teaching that
requires His obedient servants to make their first priority the protection of
the least among those people who are scheduled to die today. A
simple glance at what Jesus had in mind makes His point clear. Even when people are dying and all need
help, the least of them will be the most vulnerable, the most likely to die
first without help. Those who are not
the least are by definition better equipped than the least to fend for
themselves. Of course, as soon as the
least is helped, then the next least will become the least and will then be
the first priority for help. After
serving the least, then we go to the next least, on up the line of leasts
until everyone that we can serve that day has been served in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. In this definition of God's priorities, the
serious intent of God to resist death and show us how to resist death is
defined and clarified so that every category of human being is seen to be the
object of God's desire for life. Yet
at the same time God shows His concern to care for every category of human
life, He makes it clear that His priorities begin with the least person who
is at risk of being killed against His will. BIBLICAL
PRIORITY PRINCIPLES LEADS TO A QUESTION: HOW
DO WE HELP THE LEAST AMONG US WHO IS DYING? The
answer to the question posed above is not necessarily obvious. Since any action taken in defense of a
person who is dying can carry risks, significant risks, to the person trying
to help, left to settle the matter for themselves the recipe for helping the
dying person will vary depending on how much risk the prospective helper is
willing to face. Jesus
Christ understood that people naturally value themselves above other
people. He knew that people are
naturally unwilling to risk doing anything that might jeopardize their
personal safety, or peace, or prosperity.
Because of these things, Jesus Christ took great pains to tell His
followers how exactly they were to go about helping the least among us who is
dying. THE
LAW OF JESUS CHRIST Most
people have heard the following words of Jesus Christ, but most people,
Christians included, have not seen their significance. " Therefore all things whatsoever ye
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law
and the prophets." Matthew 7:12 An
enormously important significance must be seen in the fact that Jesus Christ
called this particular saying, "…the law and the prophets." In other words, calling something "the
law and the prophets" must be seen to be a signal event with startling
priority significance. You
can understand the significance Jesus Christ was trying to communicate by
looking at Luke 24 and analyzing there how the same "law and
prophets" concept was used in other places in Scripture. Luke 24:27 "And beginning at Moses
and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the
things concerning himself… " Then later in the same chapter, we are
told, Luke 24:44 "And he said unto them, These are the words which I
spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled,
which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in
the psalms, concerning me. 45Then opened he their understanding, that they
might understand the scriptures…" The
point should be clear: numerous examples can prove that Scripture often uses
the concept of "the law" to refer to the five books understood by
the Apostles to be written by Moses, and "the prophets" was often
understood to refer to all the other old testament books with the exception
of the "poetry books," Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon and
Ecclesiastes. So
when Jesus Christ called this commandment, " Therefore all things
whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them…"
the "law and the prophets" He was telling His disciples that this
particular commandment was a summary statement of all the statements in the
Bible designed to tell people how to treat other people. If
you didn't know it prior to reading this and you actually understand what I
am trying to say, your mouth should flop open in amazement. I have just made
either one of the most stupid statements you have ever heard or one of the
most important. The accurate judgment
of what I am doing will all depend on whether or not Jesus Christ actually
found one sentence that summarizes the meaning of everything that God had
tried to teach people in the Old Testament about how to treat their
fellowman/woman/child. So
look at what He said. If we do unto
other people the things that we would want to have done to us, will we
fulfill everything God wants people to do in their relationship with other
people? Examine the matter in detail
and you will prove you want to obey the commandment Jesus Christ called
"the law and the prophets." In
order to obey that commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ it is necessary to
first put ourselves in the position of the person we are required to
judge. In other words, we cannot decide what we would want men to do to
us unless we put ourselves in their shoes first. For example, before we
can judge a rapist, we must ask ourselves what would we want done to
ourselves were we to be a rapist. It
is necessary to issue a disclaimer right
here. Now obviously the Lord Jesus Christ is talking in Matt
7:12 not to a reprobate sinner but to a disciple of Jesus Christ who has
access to the mind of Christ who would guide them to understand what they
should do to rightly fulfill what the Lord called "the law".
He is not saying do unto others as a reprobate rapist would want done unto him,
but do unto the rapist as we would want done were we to be a rapist yet
somehow still have access to the mind of Christ. I know this
sounds strange and hard to understand. But I have seen convicts who met
the Lord Jesus Christ while in prison, and I have seen those convicts decide
to confess crimes they had never been convicted of because they would want
others to do that for them. In that example, that unsaved sinner was
saved and came to receive access to the mind of Christ and could actually
understand what men "should" do to him given the crimes he had
actually committed. Even
though what I am discussing is hard to get into focus and understand, we must
exert whatever effort is required. To fail to do so is to break the law
and to become disobedient to everything God tried to instruct His people
insofar as their interactions with other people are concerned. So
when we ask ourselves what would we want to have done to us, or to make the matter
even more close to home, to one of our beloved children, should such and such
a situation occur, we are defining the prerequisite necessary to obey the
Lord's command in Matt. 7:12. GRADE YOUR
PRIORITY OBEDIENCE Is it not clear
that the Christians who turn their heads away from the babies being killed
are not implementing the priorities taught by the Lord Jesus Christ in the
story of the Good Samaritan!? Instead
this generation of Christians is implementing today exactly the same
definition of priorities demonstrated by the Priest and the Levite in the
story of the Good Samaritan. Our Priorities
Prove Who Loves Their Neighbor Look closely at
the two other people mentioned in the story who passed by the man dying in
the ditch. "31And by chance
there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by
on the other side. 32And likewise a Levite, when he
was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other
side." Both of those
people were the exact Jewish equivalent of Christian pastors or teachers or
elders in this nation today. Jesus made
it clear that the Priest who refused to stop and help the person dying in the
ditch did not love their neighbor. Neither did the Levite on his way to work
in the As we walk by the babies dying in the ditch created by the Supreme
Court of the There
is a conclusion that grows logically out of everything revealed in this
article; it is a conclusion that no one should ever have to utter about a
generation of Christians. But the
conclusion, like all true conclusions, grows inescapably out of an accurate
analysis of the evidence at hand and therefore will be said sooner or
later. And the conclusion is this: As
far as helping people understand God's priorities, the leaders of Christians
in this generation would serve God better, like the people mentioned in the
beginning of this article, spending all their time standing before a mirror
putting on makeup or feeding their faces.
At least then nobody would be misled into thinking they were
fulfilling God's priorities! God
deliver us from such leaders! THE
MORAL In
a world where we the people are being called upon to blow other nations--and the
citizens of all gender and ages within them--to kingdom come, it would be
wise to begin to implement the priorities of Jesus Christ here in this
nation. Unless
we the people do this, we are exactly like all the other nations on
earth, with one exception: we presently have the most and biggest weapons of
mass destruction. As we continue to
reveal our willingness to use these weapons of mass destruction, it will
slowly dawn on the other nations of the world that the We
can avoid such an awful fate. By
protecting the literal least among us--the unborn baby from the moment of
conception--as a nation we demonstrate that we are at least here at home
attempting to implement the priorities of Jesus Christ. In so doing, He will protect the God
help us to begin to implement your priorities today! |
Abortion
Not In the Bush Story
**If you know of a Church group or civic group willing to
bring Neal Horsley in to expand, amplify, or defend these ideas, please email him today. Or write
him at Neal Horsley, PO Box 1081, Carrollton, Ga 30116.
See How to Implement God's Priorities Today!
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