By Chris WittsTuesday 6 Jun 2023Morning Devotions with Chris WittsDevotionsReading Time: 1 minute
Subscribe to Morning Devotions podcast
Transcript:
You’re not going to take your possessions with you. It’s not going to last. The next time you hear about some billionaire dying and someone says, “I wonder how much she left?” – she left it all! She didn’t take any of it with her. Possessions aren’t going to last.
Then Mark 10:31 tells us prestige isn’t going to last. “Many people who seem to be important now will be the least important then in eternity.” And the next part of the verse says, “and many who seem least important today will be most important in heaven.”
I have a book to recommend for you to read. It was written by the wealthiest man who ever lived and he was also the most powerful man in the world at that time. His name was Solomon and he wrote a journal called Ecclesiastes. If you read Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament you’ll find the end result of living a life based on the world’s value system. He says, “I have the money and I have the power to do anything I want to do in life and so I did. I held back nothing. I experienced every pleasure, I amassed every possession and I gained all the prestige in the world that I could gain. I did it all. I tried it all. I tried food and I tried sex and I tried achievement.” Solomon had 300 wives. And he said “I tried it all. But it’s useless, worthless. My conclusion is it’s all vanity.”
MAYBE WHAT I NEED TO DO IS CHANGE MY LIFESTYLE
That means I have to match what I value. I need to start working on bringing my life into line with what I say I believe. That’s called congruency.
I recently read about a Gallup poll. After polling all kinds of people, the poll said that the number one source of stress in our lives is not, not having enough time. It’s not, not having enough money. It’s not relational conflict. The conclusion was that the number one source of stress today was what they called incongruent values. What is that? It means when I say I believe one thing but I live a different way. That causes stress in my life. When my walk doesn’t match my talk. When I say this is important to me but my lifestyle says it’s not really important to me at all. That causes stress.
People say, “God’s number one in my life.” But we give God the leftover of our time. We give God the leftover of our money. . We don’t put God first in our schedule. So God’s not really first. Incongruent values causes stress. If God is really important in my life, I should have a daily prayer time. God should get the first day of every week – Sunday – in worship.
I need to look and see that I’m making time for the relationships I say are really important. Am I giving enough time to my family or children?
You might be saying this morning .. “I’d like to change. I know that what I say is important to me I don’t make time for, and the things I don’t think are important I spend all my time on. And all the things I want to do I end up not doing and all the things I don’t want to do I end up doing. I’m so confused and I’d like to change but I don’t have the energy or the power or the strength or the wisdom to do it.”
You’re right. That’s why you need God in your life. That’s why you need Jesus. God gives you the power to do what God wants you to do. You can’t do this on your own. You’ve tried to change dozens of times and it will last a week, two, three weeks at the most. It doesn’t work. You need God’s power.
The tragedy is most of us never get serious about changes in our lives until it’s too late. Please don’t wait until it’s too late to start looking at where the values you’ve been living by are taking you. Start building a foundation right now for the rest of your life based on values that really matter.
CHECK MY VALUES EACH DAY
Once you have worked out what your values are and what success is for you, I suggest that you set aside five minutes every day to sit down and – once you’ve got this list prepared and put some Bible verses with it as you grow and find a good verse –and say “Is my life in harmony with what I say is important?
“Am I living what I say I believe, what’s really important or am I not?” If an area shows up in my life, I need to bring that back in line. If you’re serious about changing, you’re going to have to review and test your values on a regular basis. You don’t know what the future holds but God has given us a compass. It is the values that are in the Bible. They have been the same for 200, 300, 3000 years. Just as they were true in the year 1000 they are still as true today.
There is a term that is used for God’s value system. God’s value system is called the Realm, or Kingdom of God. The Realm of God simply means the values that God set the world up to be run on. The Bible says that if I seek first God’s Realm, that means put God’s values first in my life, God will take care of all the other needs in my life.
You were made to know God and His plan and purpose, and to live by God’s values. And when you know God and live by those values, life unfolds in a way that you can’t imagine is possible.
Let’s Pray
God, I want my life to count.
I want to build my life on values that last.
Help me this week to clarify what really counts and start heading in that direction.
Turn my eyes away from worthless things.
Help me to eliminate what isn’t of value in my life and to begin living for You the purpose you made me and the values You intended me to live by.
Most of all I really want to get to know You.
So Jesus, come into my life and make Yourself real to me.
In Your name I pray, Amen.”