THE DANGER OF MISPLACED PRIORITY

Matthew chapter 6













Today we are walking in: The Danger Of Misplaced Priority










Today we look to the word-FIRST-H7218 ro'sh --top, upper part, chief, front, beginning; chief, choicest, best










The Torah Testifies.............................








Exodus 12:2




This month shall be unto you the beginning H7218 of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.










The prophets proclaim...............





Isaiah 41:4




Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? H7218 I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.









The writings bear witness.............




1 Chronicles 26:10




Also Hosah, of the children of Merari, had sons; Simri the chief, H7218 (for though he was not the firstborn, yet his father made him the chief;) H7218







THE DANGER OF MISPLACED PRIORITY




Every human heart longs for a simple life. We are naturally attracted to people who exhibit a focused, purposeful, organized life and simplified lifestyle. I believe this is the fundamental attraction of millions to the man Yahusha Hamachiach. There has never been a character who displayed such a strong spirit of personal conviction, purpose, self-awareness, confidence, self-worth, and a sense of destiny as this one man. The most impacting aspect of His life was His clear sense of priority.




Yahusha Hamachiach is the most focused and single-minded person who has ever lived. His entire life on earth was dedicated to one theme—the Kingdom of Heaven. Even by the age of 12 Yahusha already knew His life purpose and priority. When His earthly parents, relieved at finding Him in the temple in Jerusalem after searching diligently for Him for three days, chided Him for worrying them, He said, “Why were you searching for Me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). Another way to phrase the same question: “Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49 NKJV). “Already Yahusha had a singular focus on His Father’s priority, and He never lost sight of it.




It was, in part, this singularity of purpose and clarity of priorities that caused Yahusha to stand out so clearly among the people of His day. Unlike Yahusha, people in general have a problem putting first things first. When man lost his dominion in the Garden of Eden he also lost his sense of proper priority and purpose. In fact, all humanity wrestles with two parallel problems related to priority: either absence of priority or misplaced priority. Both carry significant consequences.




Absence of priority causes one to drift through life with no focus or sense of purpose or direction. All of one’s energy and potential are dissipated by trying to shoot off in too many directions and trying to do too many things. In many cases, people with no priority become lethargic and apathetic. A dull sameness characterizes their day-to-day living.




Misplaced priority results in wasting one’s life pursuing the wrong thing, carrying out the wrong assignment. People with misplaced priority may be very focused individuals, but they are focused on the wrong thing. A life absent of priority accomplishes nothing in the end, while a life of misplaced priority may succeed in many things, but not in that which is most important. Either way, the end result is a failed life.




Do you want to come to the end of your days only to look back and have to say, regretfully, “I failed”? I know I don’t!




THE TRAGEDY OF ABSENT PRIORITY




Nothing is more tragic than a life without purpose. Why is purpose so important? Purpose is the source of priorities. Defining our life’s priorities is extremely difficult unless we first discover and define our purpose. Purpose is defined as the original reason and intent for the creation of a thing. Therefore, purpose is the source of meaning and significance for all created things.




If purpose is not known, priorities cannot be established and nothing significant or worthwhile in life can be accomplished. In essence, if you don’t why you are on planet Earth and posses a clear sense of purpose and destiny, the demand for priorities is low or nonexistent. The truth is, if you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there. Life is daily and constantly demanding of our time energy, talent, attention, and focus. Therefore, to effectively manage the everyday demands, we must know what our priorities are. No matter what we think about life, we have to live it every day and give an account of our management.




I believe the greatest challenge in life is the daily demand to choose between competing alternatives that consume our lives. If we do not have clear and correct priorities in our lives and know what we should be doing, our lives will be an exercise in futility. The absence of priority is dangerous and detrimental.




Absence of priority results, first of all, in the wasting of time and energy. If you’re not doing the right thing at the right time, that means you are doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. But you expend the same time and energy either way. Time and energy, once spent, are gone forever. They cannot be replaced.




When priority is absent, you become busy on the wrong things. If you don’t know what the right things are, you will end up focusing on the wrong things. These “wrong things” may not be bad or evil in themselves; they are just wrong for you because they will distract you from pursuing your life purpose.




People without priority spend their time doing the unnecessary. If you think about it, most of what we do on a daily basis is not really necessary. We spend most of our time sweating, fretting, and laboring over issues that, in the eternal scheme of things, are pointless. And in the meantime, the things that really matter go undone.




In a similar way, absence of priority causes people to major on the unimportant. If you have no priority, you end up majoring on the minors. For some reason most of us are easily distracted or enticed away from focusing on the most important matters in life to concentrate instead on peripheral issues. Proverbs 29:18a says, “Where there is no revelation [vision], the people cast off restraint.” Priority helps us sharpen our vision so we can focus on the most important things. Without it, we have no sense of direction and are apt to pursue whatever suits our fancy at the time.




Consequently, the absence of priority results in preoccupation with the unimportant. Not only do we focus on the unimportant, we become preoccupied with it. We think about it, debate it, discuss it, argue about it, and have conferences on it until, by default, it becomes a de facto priority for us. But even then, it is still the wrong priority.




Preoccupation leads to investment, so absence of priority causes us to invest in the less valuable. Who would invest in something that could produce only a 10-fold return instead of something that guarantees a 100-fold return? We all invest our time and energy and money on those things that we deem most important and of greatest value. What if we’re wrong? Unless we know what is truly important, it is impossible for us to invest wisely. So the end result of the absence of priority is wasted resources.




Another consequence of absent priority is ineffective activity. No matter how busy you are or how much you believe you are accomplishing, if you are focused on the wrong thing all your activity will count for nothing in the end. You will be ineffective because you did not do what you were supposed to do.




The first key to effectiveness is to be sure you are doing the right thing. Then invest your time, attention, energy, and resources to doing it well. Otherwise, no matter how hard you work or how hard you try, you will not succeed.




One of the most serious consequences of absent priority is that it leads to the abuse of gifts and talents. If you use your talent to do something that you are not supposed to do, you have wasted your talent, even if you use it well. Some of the most gifted and talented people in the world use their Yah-given abilities in ways He never intended, pursuing selfish desires, indulging in lust and immorality, encouraging sensuality and promoting values that are destructive to family and society. Having talent is one thing, but knowing how to make it serve the top priority in your life is a different story. Imagine being a gifted speaker proclaiming the wrong message or a talented singer singing the wrong song. It happens every day and it is a tragedy.




People with no priority in life forfeit purpose. Everybody has a purpose in life but most people, sadly, never discover it. Without priority in your life you will never understand your purpose and if you do not understand your purpose you will not pursue it. If you are not pursuing the purpose you were born for, then you are pursuing the wrong thing. Even if you succeed in your pursuit you have still failed because you have not fulfilled your purpose. So, absence of priority will forfeit your purpose for living.




Finally, absence of priority results in failure. No matter how successful you are in what you do, if you are not doing the most important thing, the thing that you are supposed to be doing, you are failing. Busy activity, sweat, and hard work are important as long as you are focused on the right assignment. However, they can never substitute for correct priority. Priorities are like river banks; they control the flow of life.




MISPLACED PRIORITY: MEETING PERSONAL NEEDS




From the beginning of the creation of the human race, the Creator established the priority of man when He commanded the man to focus on dominion over the earth. This mandate was one of kingdom rulership, management, stewardship, and governmental administration over planet Earth. It is essential to note that there was no mention of working for survival or food but only for development and fulfillment.




Priority was never a problem in the Garden of Eden. As long as Adam and Eve walked in full and open fellowship with Yah, their Creator, they had no worries because He provided for all their needs. Food, water, and other resources were abundant, and the perfectly temperate climate made clothing and shelter unnecessary. Daily interaction with Yah, purposeful work caring for the Garden, and exercising dominion over the created order filled their lives with meaning and significance.




The first family’s priority was executing ruling not pursuing resources. Mankind was preoccupied with living and life and rather than making a living. In the beginning, man’s priority was ruling things rather than pursuing things. Man’s provision for daily living was inherent in his relationship of obedience and cooperation with his Creator and the fulfillment of His plans for the earth.




All of that changed when they lost their dominion through disobedience. Evicted from the Garden and their fellowship with Yah broken, they had to pay attention to things they had once taken for granted, such as food, water, shelter, and even survival itself.




It was this tragic event that initiated the change in priorities for all mankind and refocused his life on daily survival. This preoccupation with temporal things like food, clothing, covering, shelter, water, and other fundamental needs for life has consumed people to this day and was announced by the Creator as evidence of the penalty of curse for man’s disobedience and treason against the Kingdom government of Heaven.




Note the words of the Creator when He addressed the family of man after the act of defiance:




…Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return (Genesis 3:17-19).




This legacy of need was passed from generation to generation until it became—and remains—the consuming priority of mankind.




Everything man does outside the Kingdom of Heaven is motivated by the drive to meet personal needs. This fact was clarified and documented through the work of Abraham Maslow, a 20th century behavioral scientist and psychologist.




Dr. Maslow, after years of observation and study of human behavior, identified nine basic needs common to all people and cultures and arranged them according to priority in a “hierarchy of needs”:




1.Food




2.Water




3.Clothes




4.Housing




5.Protection




6.Security




7.Preservation




8.Self-actualization




9.Significance




Maslow discovered that in every culture, the driving priority was first to acquire the basic things necessary for survival, such as food, water, and shelter and protection from the elements and predators. Until these fundamental needs were secured and assured, nothing else mattered. Once basic survival was no longer an issue, more focus was given to the aesthetic needs of self-actualization and a feeling of significance. Essentially, Maslow was correct: his hierarchy of needs accurately identifies the progressive motivations that drive human culture.




Man, in his never-ending struggle for survival and significance, and separated in spirit from the Yah who created him, invented religion as a vehicle in his attempt to find the lost kingdom state of rulership and control earth’s resources to meet his needs. A careful study of all forms of religion reveals that all religions are designed and built on the promise of meeting needs. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Confucianism, Scientology, Bahai, Christian Science, Spiritism, animism, humanism—you name it—they all, without exception, seek to draw followers by promising to make their lives better, improve their circumstances, give them some sense of control over their environment, and offer answers to the questions of death and the after life. To this list we must add institutional Christianity—Christianity in its most rigid, regulated, ritualistic, legalistic, and stratified form, is a religion run and controlled by men.




A second common characteristic of religion is that all religions are motivated by the pleasing of deity in order to secure basic needs (crops, weather, protection, preservation, etc). After man became separated from Yah because of his sin of disobedience, he began to fear that his needs would not be met. He felt all alone and that everything was up to him. So he began to worship gods of his own invention, man-made deities that were at best only the faintest shadow of the loving and provident Yah Adam and Eve knew in the Garden of Eden.




This is why human history is so replete with gods: the sun god, moon god, rain god, ocean god, god of war, god of sex and fertility, god of the mountain, god of the valley, etc. Man invented religion as an effort to appease fearful and unknown deities into giving him what he needs for daily life. It was a way, hopefully, of manipulating nature and controlling one’s destiny. Life was harsh, grim, and full of violence. The purpose of religion was to win the good favor of the gods by being good to them and doing them favors.




Another common denominator is that all religions have as their primary focus the needs of the worshiper, not the needs of the worshiped. Religious people always serve and worship their gods with the ulterior motive of expecting or hoping for something good in return. Their prayers are self-centered, usually focused almost exclusively on personal needs and desires. No attention is given to the needs or desires of the deity beyond that which is necessary to appease it and persuade it to act on their behalf. In the religion of man, the purpose of the gods is to fix things.




In all religions, therefore, religious priority in petition and prayer is for personal needs. Let’s be honest. For most of us, 99 percent of our prayers deal with what we want from Yah: a new job, new car, new house, enough money not only to pay the bills but also to gratify our lust for things. How often do we spare a thought for what He wants?




Religion is selfish because all religion is driven by the priority of needs. The promise of meeting needs is the main reason people stay in a religion. Even when a religion fails to deliver what it promises, its followers are reluctant to leave it because faith in tradition dies hard. If their religion fails to meet their expectations for this life, rather than leave, they will simply postpone their expectations for the afterlife, however they understand it.




There is no doubt that the chief priority of man is to meet his own needs. The question we need to ask is whether or not that is the correct priority for man. By now we all should know that it is not. Mankind in general suffers from the dual dilemma of misplaced priority and misplaced faith.




MASLOW OVERTURNED




Maslow’s theory of the hierarchy of human needs illustrates the priority of man that actually motivates human behavior in the real world—a priority centered on the acquisition of things. Yahusha, however, turns Maslow’s list upside down. The Kingdom of Heaven is different from the kingdoms of men. From the perspective of the Kingdom of Heaven, the priorities of man—Maslow’s list—are perverted. Mankind’s life focus has become twisted far afield from Yah’s original intent. Consider the words of Yahusha:




Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?




And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how Yah clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Matthew 6:25-30)




Notice that the first thing Yahusha says is, “Don’t worry about your life.” Yet that is exactly what we do. Our days are filled with worries about the very things Yahusha said we should not worry about: food, drink, clothing—all the basic necessities of life. Our every waking moment is filled with thoughts and worries about how to get ahead and stay ahead.




In our world today most people approach life in one of two ways: either they work to live or they live to work. Yahusha said that both approaches are wrong. He said, “Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?”




There is more to life than working, even to acquire basic necessities. Work is important, but it does not or should not define us. Our life priority and purpose do not center on work. This is important to know because if we miss our true priority in life, we will miss our true purpose in life.




Yahusha said, “Do not worry.” Worry is the most useless exercise in the world. Why? Because it doesn’t change anything. Most of us spend our time worrying either about things that will never happen or about things that we cannot change. Either way, worrying is pointless. Worry changes nothing, yet it consumes our energy, time, talents, our gifts, our wisdom, and our knowledge. It even consumes our imagination.




The only thing worry contributes to is to make us sick. Studies have identified worry-related stress as the number one cause of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Stress causes veins and arteries to constrict, hindering blood flow, causing the blood to back up toward the heart, thus increasing pressure on the heart. This elevates the risk of heart attack and stroke. Worry gets us nowhere. It simply isn’t worth our time or trouble.




We worry because we have misplaced priorities, which cause us then to have misplaced faith. Look at the two examples Yahusha gave: the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. The birds do not sow or reap or store away food, yet they never go hungry. Likewise, the lilies of the field do not spin fabric and make clothing, yet they are dressed in beauty and elegance that not even King Solomon could match.




Why? Because Yah Himself feeds the birds and dresses the flowers. Notice that Yahusha said of the birds, “your heavenly Father feeds them.” He did not say, “their heavenly Father.” Our heavenly Father is the same one who takes care of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. The word Father (abba in Hebrew) means “source and sustainer.” So the phrase could read, “your heavenly Source and Sustainer feeds them.” Yahusha’ question to us, then, is, “If your heavenly Source and Sustainer takes care of the birds and the lilies, which are here today and gone tomorrow, don’t you think He will take care of you, too?”




Our problem today is that we have misplaced our faith. We have changed our source. Instead of looking to our heavenly Father, we look either to ourselves or to someone else (parent, spouse, employer, government) to sustain us. After all, since we live in a dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself world, we have to fight, scrape and scramble for everything we can get and then hold onto it with a white-knuckled grip. Right?




That is the priority and mind-set of the world, not of the Kingdom of Heaven! Who is your source? If you are looking to anyone other than Yah the Father and King of Heaven as your source, that may explain why you are struggling and why your life just won’t come together. If, on the other hand, you make Yah your source, then He calls the shots. And if He calls the shots, He pays the bills!




PAGANISM IS ALIVE AND WELL




Any religion that focuses on the acquisition of things and the meeting of personal needs is a religion of pagans. Look again at what Yahusha said:




So do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew 6:31-34).




According to Yahusha, always running after and being preoccupied with the acquisition of things and the satisfying of basic necessities is the activity of pagans. Based on that definition, I would have to say that paganism is alive and well in our world today. As a matter of fact, one of the largest gatherings of pagans takes places every Sunday when the communities known as the church of Jesus Christ gather for worship.




We claim to believe Yah and trust Him, but our daily lives and the concerns that fill our thoughts reveal that most of us do not. We give lip service to Yah’s provision, yet we work for food, drink, clothing, shelter, and other things as if it all depends on us. And working for those things becomes the center of our existence and the top priority of our lives. We work hard but we don’t spend time with Yah. A couple of hours a week pretending to worship, and that’s it. Our preoccupation with material things, satisfying basic needs and getting ahead in the world is nothing other than pagan behavior. Those who truly know the Yah of Heaven as their Source and Supplier do not have these concerns because they are confident that He has taken care of them.




It is important at this point to understand what we mean by the word pagan. Contrary to what many people may assume, most pagans are not atheists; nor are they, usually, evil people. On the contrary, pagans are highly religious. The word pagan, in fact, refers to worshipers. It refers to people who worship a Yah other than the one true and living Yah as revealed in the Bible. An equivalent word to pagan is idolater. Pagans, then, are religious devotees, often highly zealous adherents to a specific system of beliefs and rigidly faithful to a strict set of customs and rituals. The concept of a personal, loving Yah who cares deeply about them is completely alien to pagans. Yah, however they conceive him (or her) to be, is a distant, often harsh deity who must be appeased and persuaded to help them. The thought of loving such a Yah is incomprehensible.




Yahusha said that only religious people—pagans—run after the basic needs of life. So if food, drink, clothing, money, car, house and other material things are your priorities, then you are thinking and acting like a pagan, no matter what you claim to believe.




We need a complete change of focus. It is time for us to stop living according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and start living by the principles and priorities of the Kingdom of Heaven. Yahusha turned Maslow upside down and then gave us the correct perspective: “But seek first His [Yah’s] kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33, emphasis added). They will be given. That means that we do not have to work for them or worry about them; Yah will supply them freely if we give priority to His Kingdom and righteousness.




This does not mean that we should quit our jobs and sit around waiting for Yah to drop all of these things in our laps. It does mean that even as we work from day to day in our jobs and professions, we are living for other priorities—Yah’s priorities—supremely and serenely confident that He has us covered. There is no surer antidote to stress, anxiety, and worry.




It is time to set aside the pagan mind-set with its priority of things and take up instead the divine priority, the priority of the Kingdom of Yah and His righteousness. Isaiah 26:3 provides this precious promise: “You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed [steadfast] on You, Because he trusts in You” (NKJV).




THE PRIORITY OF YAH—KINGDOM FIRST




Our greatest longing is also Yah’s primary intent and desire. Yah’s highest priority is restoring the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. It was to this end that He sent His Son, Yahusha Hamachiach, to earth to live among us for a time; to take on human flesh and become one of us. From the very beginning Yahusha’ message was simple and straightforward: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matt. 4:17b). Later on, He specifically instructed His followers to “seek first His [Yah’s] kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33).




Yahusha preached the Kingdom. He taught the Kingdom. The Kingdom of Heaven was the central theme of everything Yahusha did and said. It was, essentially, His only message. And that message of the Kingdom is the same message the world needs to hear today because everyone on earth is searching for the Kingdom of Heaven.




The priority of the Kingdom message was brought home to me in a very personal way that transformed my life and my entire way of thinking. My desire is that He would speak to me His heart and mind for all time in my life and reveal His greatest desire for His people. Yah said to me: “Kingdom first!” That was it. Just two words. Kingdom first! He simply said, “Kingdom first!” Straight and to the point, which is always the way Yah speaks.




“Kingdom first!” A deceptively simple statement, so simple that its true depth and significance of meaning are easy to miss. At least, I thought it was simple until I began studying and discovered that this two-word statement embodies the central thrust of Yah’s entire plan and purpose for humankind. For you see, “Kingdom first!” is a message with universal application. It relates to everyone on earth. It is a message for the world. “Kingdom first!” is a message for Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. It is for Buddhists and Hindus. It is for atheists and agnostics. It is for scientists, theologians, and philosophers. “Kingdom first!” is a message for people of every religion and people of no religion because it is not a religious message. “Kingdom first!” is a message that transcends religion.




Why is the “Kingdom first!” message so universal and so important? Because when we understand “Kingdom first!” we will understand how to live effectively on earth. Everybody wants to live effectively. We all want our lives to mean something. Each of us desires to control our own destiny, live out our dreams, and fulfill our highest potential. Understanding and embracing the “Kingdom first!” message will make all of these things possible. It will allow us to understand the keys to life.




PRINCIPLES




1.Nothing is more tragic than a life without purpose.




2.If you’re not doing the right thing at the right time, that means you are doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.




3.Priority helps us sharpen our vision so we can focus on the most important things.




4.If you are not pursuing the purpose you were born for, then you are pursuing the wrong thing.




5.Everything man does outside the Kingdom of Heaven is motivated by the drive to meet personal needs.




6.All religion is driven by the priority of needs.




7.Yahusha said, “Don’t worry about your life.”




8.Worry is the most useless exercise in the world.




9.If you make Yah your source, then He calls the shots. And if He calls the shots, He pays the bills!




10.Any religion that focuses on the acquisition of things and the meeting of personal needs is a religion of pagans.




11.If food, drink, clothing, money, car, house and other material things are your priorities, then you are thinking and acting like a pagan, no matter what you claim to believe.




12. It is time for us to stop living according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and start living by the principles and priorities of the Kingdom of Heaven.