June 28

“Most Christians are quick to claim that God is their first priority.  Yet often their actions reveal that their treasure is not God but things of this world....Ask your friends....your children...to tell you what they think is most important to you.”  H. Blackaby, Experiencing God Day-by-Day, 6/28

I took Blackaby’s advice and asked one of my sons that question.  His first answer was “us”.  As I pressed him with “Is that all?” he added, “God” and “morals”.  I feel good that I passed the test with my son, but would I pass it with friends?  The real test, I think, would be how an acquaintance would answer--the people I see on a regular basis where I shop and do business.  I’m not feeling so confident about how I am perceived there.  In another book I just read the author makes the point that God has given each of us a mission in life and it is the reason we don’t just go to heaven immediately when we are born again.  That mission is to bear witness to Him so that others might be born again.  Every person I come upon who has a need or with whom I have an ongoing relationship is my mission field.  I must be willing and able to be a witness with my life, my words, and my deeds of God’s redeeming love.

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.’”  Matthew 28:19, 20