The Value of Keeping Priorities in the Right Order
The Lord is their strength. He is a stronghold of salvation to his anointed. — Psalms 28:8
In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. — Philippians 4:6
Author
Faustino de Jesús Zamora Vargas
Summary: The Kingdom of God calls for daily decisions and well-ordered priorities. Our many tasks can draw us away from what matters most: intimacy with the Lord, dependence on Him, and surrender to His will. After rebuilding the wall, Nehemiah safeguarded what had been accomplished: he delegated responsibilities to God-fearing men, organized Jerusalem’s defense, recorded genealogies, examined the priests’ spiritual fitness, and established the offerings. We, too, must guard against spiritual breaches through prayer, the Word, and fellowship with the church. Christ is our priority; as we seek Him and listen to His voice, we will be able to recognize and do first what He places on our hearts.
The Kingdom of God is not static. It requires daily decisions to grow stronger, to defend itself against the enemy, and to bring to a successful conclusion the plans God plants in our hearts. Many times we feel overwhelmed by the multitude of tasks before us.
Packed schedules sometimes become burdens we cannot bear on our own, and in our eagerness to complete every task, we neglect what matters most: our intimacy with the Lord, our dependence on Him, and our surrender to His will. Nehemiah knew how to set priorities.
The rebuilding of Jerusalem’s wall had been completed in 52 days, after the people’s hard work and persistent opposition from God’s enemies. And how were they to proceed now? Governor Nehemiah still bore a great responsibility. He had to put his duties in order and safeguard what God had enabled him to accomplish. Nehemiah’s priorities were to entrust the governance to godly men who feared God; protect the city from attacks by the external enemy through a defense system; conduct a census recording the genealogies and ancestry of those who had been deported; select from among the thousands of priests those who were truly spiritually fit to minister in the temple; and, finally, establish and record the offerings so that the work of God could continue to be built up.
This is a beautiful lesson for us Christians today. The Lord fights our battles, rebuilds our spiritual ruins, and raises the walls of faith and trust in divine power—and in the end, we let our guard down. We leave open the breaches through which the enemy slips in. God is good, and He has provided us with an entire spiritual defense system to help us rise again: prayer, reading and meditating on His Word, His church, godly sisters and brothers who fear God and accompany us in the race—in short, a whole spiritual arsenal of the highest order.
How often do we neglect prayer and time alone in intimacy with our Lord? How often can we say, like Nehemiah, “My God put it into my heart…” (Neh. 7:5), as the result of absolute surrender to His will so that we may hear His voice at every moment? Do we tolerate and overlook the faults of those brothers who are not spiritually fit to minister to God’s people? God commanded Moses: “Moreover, you shall choose from among all the people capable men, men who fear God, truthful men who hate dishonest gain, and place them over the people as leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens.” (Ex. 18:21).
Our priority is Christ. To strengthen and build up, in His name, the values of the Kingdom of God against the values of godlessness and the unbridled excesses of the forces of evil. The world lies in ruins, but we are heirs to the heavenly promises. Let us seek Him, and He will establish our priorities in our hearts. Blessed is the man or woman who can say, like Nehemiah, “My God put it into my heart…” You can be sure that if you are in perfect communication with your Lord, what He puts in your heart is the first thing you must do.
God bless you!
Suggested reading: Nehemiah 7