Tuesday, February 26, 2008
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People were confused about it for centuries. They looked at the sun rising and setting every day and they reached a seemingly obvious conclusion: the earth is the center of everything and the sun revolves around the earth, right? If you say "right," you need to go back to third grade science Actually, if you think the sun revolves around the earth, well, you agree with about one out of five Americans in a recent survey. You know, it's a good thing to get right—what's in the center and what revolves around it.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Keep Order in Your Universe."
Now, it's easy to make the same mistake that ancient, and even some modern people have made, confusing what should be the planets of our life with the sun that those planets should all be revolving around.
In our word for today from the Word of God in Luke 4 beginning in verse 42, Jesus has to make sure that the "sun" is in the middle, and everything else is revolving around it in His own life. In this case, the "sun" is the life mission He is on. He's in Capernaum where He has spent much of the day miraculously healing people and casting out demons. Then it says, "at daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for Him and when they came to where He was, they tried to keep Him from leaving them. But He said, 'I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.' And He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea."
Notice those words that decide Jesus' priorities: "I must." Jesus knows His musts, His non-negotiables, the "sun" around which all other demands in His life must revolve. And He is faced with a lot of people who need Him, asking Him to do a very good thing. But He says "No" based on His non-negotiable mission. He knows He must not allow anything, no matter how noble, to deter Him from what He came to do - to keep spreading His message to other towns.
And Jesus has left us a model for making the hard priority choices we all face. You may be struggling with some right now. And maybe, like Jesus, all your choices are good ones. When it's hard to sort all that out, it's time to do what Jesus did - get alone with God and let Him refocus you on what is most important from His perspective. Each new day, we need to be with the Father making sure we are making His non-negotiables our non-negotiables.
Certainly, our relationship with Him is the ultimate "sun" around which everything else is just a "planet." We can't make any choice that will adversely affect this anchor relationship. There are other non-negotiables God wants you to make the center of your choices: what's best for your marriage, your children, sticking to His calling, His life-mission for you, uncompromised integrity, your responsibility to show the people around you what Jesus is like, and your responsibility to spread the Jesus message to people who will die without it.
See, life's choices are a lot less confusing when you know your non-negotiables. Then you decide based on everything else having to revolve around those non-negotiables. Actually, you have to be sure you know God's non-negotiables as you re-clarify them with Him each new day. There are just too many noble detours that you just can't afford to take. Your personal universe is in order when the sun is in the center, and then everything else is where it's supposed to be - planets taking their place around a sun that never, never moves.