Wrong Priorities
2 Corinthians 5:11-13
11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. 12 We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.
This past Sunday, we looked at 2 Corinthians 5 where Paul gives us the reason we live changed lives that are focused on pleasing God instead of anything else. Those two reasons being, in painfully shortened terms, the hope we have of eternity with God in perfected bodies, and the fear of the Lord that comes from knowing we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ when we die or He comes back.
Paul continues in verse 11-21 giving us the MOST important job of the person who has been changed by Jesus…
GO TELL OTHERS what has happened to you and how Jesus can do the same thing in their lives. Every single believer is called and equipped to carry this “word of reconciliation” with them to their homes, neighborhoods, families, schools, workplaces, everywhere they go. It is simply the most basic job of the Christ follower, to tell others about Jesus with changed lives and with changed words.
So why do we, the church, fail to do this? Why do we struggle so much to share the gospel when it is THE most important task given to us? I didn’t get much time on Sunday to cover this, so our devos for the next few days will cover some reasons from this passage.
Important disclaimer: None of these reasons give us an exemption, none are a valid excuse from the ministry of reconciliation, but maybe if we are aware of the struggle within us we can more successfully let the Holy Spirit change us and move us towards obedience despite these fears and struggles.
First struggle, we take pride in the wrong things, we prioritize the wrong things.
It’s really hard to share the gospel when we are more concerned with what the lost people in our lives think than what God thinks. When we are more concerned about pleasing them and not upsetting them than we are with pleasing God.
When we take pride in our relationships, in our wealth, in our status, instead of in what God has done in us, it becomes infinitely harder to share the gospel. When we take any of the good things God has given us and place them above Him, we move down the task of sharing the gospel on our priority list.
Here is the hard question today, could verse 13 be used to describe you? Does your life after Christ look so different and so changed that others would or do look at you and say “why do you live that way, that seems like a crazy choice to me”? Or is your life pretty much the same as the lost people around you?
This doesn’t mean we should go be insane people, selling all our possessions, or refusing to have jobs, by no means. What it does mean is if our following of Christ NEVER causes friction with the lost people and the lost world around us, maybe we aren’t as committed to Jesus as we thought.
One of the most common ways this shows itself is if our life is mostly devoid of sharing our faith and the gospel with others. Because it is scary, and intimidating, and outside of our comfort zone, to tell other people they have a problem and need to trust in Jesus to save them. But if we are faithful to share, we know our God is faithful to work, and if people respond to that message, it will SAVE their LIFE. That is worth the costs that may come with the ministry of reconciliation, if our priorities are in the right order, if we take pride in the right things.
