Exchanges

“Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.” (H. L. Hunt)

Many of us have heard the adage that there are only two definite things in life: death and taxes. Well, that isn’t exactly true, because, as we’ve probably all found out, there are more than just two. I’m not going to try to go into detail about some of the other things, except to say that one of them is choices.

As we go through experiences during the course of our lives, we quickly come to realize that, more often than not, we have to decide what we’re going to do with situations in work and home and family and friendships and politics and religion and a slew of other areas. In short, virtually everything involves choices.

The reason that I’m saying this is because, though a great number of people will disagree with what I’m about to say, still, religion holds second place in importance. Above all is: what are we going to do with God?

Let me explain.

More important than family is God; more important than friendship is God; more important than work and home and politics and even religion is God.

Without Him there is nothing, simply because our relationship with God is our only eternal relationship; and it’s He only Who enables everything else in our lives.

Consequently, we have choices in every aspect of our lives. Do we make our family our priority, or God? Do we make our home or our friendships or our work our priorities, or does God hold that place? And, ironically, does our church take precedence over Him?

That, then, brings me to the quotation with which I started this post. You see, every choice that we have involves a decision to take one and forego the other.

In other words, we have to decide what takes precedence in our lives by what we’re willing to exchange. So, in the context of what I’m presenting to you, are we willing to exchange our relationship with family with a relationship with God? Are we willing to exchange time spent at work or with friends with time spent with God? And, yet again, are we willing to exchange what we do for our church for what God would have us to do?

Now, we need to understand what this could mean. Are we willing to possibly be ostracized for choosing God first? How about losing everything that we’ve worked for? Will we change our mind if all who have called themselves brethren cut us off? And through it all, if it seems that God does nothing to alleviate our situation, will that cause us to reconsider? Would we count it all joy? We’d like to believe that would be the case, and it’s easy to firmly avow that we’d stay true and unwavering when we’re on this side of the circumstances; but Peter firmly declared that he’d be willing to follow Jesus even unto death.

God has promised things to us that we can’t even imagine if we’ll simply put Him first in our lives. But He’s also placed the decision squarely on our shoulders. He’s not going to force us to do anything. He will, however, give us glimpses into what could be if we choose to exchange what we value for what He values.

Are we willing to exchange our kingdom for His Kingdom?