Urgent or Important?
Matthew 22:36-40 Then one of them, an expert in the Law of Moses, asked Jesus a question to test him. He said, "Teacher, which command in the law is the most important?" Jesus answered, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the first and most important command. And the second command is like the first: 'Love your neighbour the same as you love yourself.' All of the law and the writings of the prophets take their meaning from these two commands."
Okay so you get up in the morning, you get dressed, you have breakfast, you brush your teeth … then what? What’s the next thing that you do? How do you make that decision? Do you do what’s urgent, or do you do what’s important? Your answer has an awful lot to do, not just with how you spend the rest of that day, but in fact, how you’re going to spend the rest of your life.
Most people, in this busy, chaotic world in which we live, feel pressured into doing the things that seem to be urgent. The things that are pressing in on them. But there’s a simple rule. The urgent things are rarely important, and important things are rarely urgent.
I have a choice each morning – sit at my desk and answer the hundred or so emails that came in overnight, or have breakfast with my wife. The emails seem to be urgent, but breakfast with my wife is actually important.
Each of us has a destiny – some life we’re meant to be living. I don’t know where your destiny lies. But I know this. You’ll never find it in that myriad of urgent minutia that crowds your day. Invariably you’ll discover your destiny in the important things, not the urgent ones.
Then one of them, an expert in the Law of Moses, asked Jesus a question to test him. He said, “Teacher, which command in the law is the most important?” Jesus answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’
This is the first and most important command. And the second command is like the first: ‘Love your neighbour the same as you love yourself.’ All of the law and the writings of the prophets take their meaning from these two commands.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
There were 613 commandments and prohibitions in the Law of Moses. It was a good question for the man to ask – which one is the most important?”
And Jesus’ response … in the context of all these rules that people had to keep? To love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and to love others as yourself.
So, given all that you have to do today, all the pressures, everything you have going on, let me ask you, what’s the most important thing?
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
Blessed by this devotion?
Share it with a friend!
Respond