Have you ever sat and thought about your priorities in life? We all have them, whether we have actually thought them out or not. Most of us just run on automatic and do the things in life that we see others doing. The “Keeping Up With The Joneses” attitude is one example of this.

Our society tells us that we need to work harder and longer, so that we can make more money and buy more stuff. Who has the biggest TV or nicest car or most luxurious house becomes the scale on which we mark our success. But this way of thinking is a lie!

This lie is perpetuated into our lives, constantly, through advertisements, television, the Internet, our friends, our enemies, and just about any other way you can imagine. But, it does not have to be that way.

Acts 2:44-47 tells a different story:

44  Now all the believers were together and had everything in common.
45  So they sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as anyone had a need.
46  And every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple complex, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart,
47  praising God and having favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved.

Their motivation was not inward, but outward. They were focused on God and others and not themselves. The “American Dream” tells us we can have it all, but God’s dream for us is much different.

Matthew 22:37-38 says:

37  He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
38  This is the greatest and most important commandment.

Verse 39 continues this with:
39  The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

Verse 40 explains why:
40  All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments.”

These words were spoken to us by Jesus, therefore I do not think we should take them lightly. I encourage you to take a few minutes and prayerfully sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil. Write a list of your priorities in life right now. Then, make a list that shows what you believe God’s priorities are for your life. The challenge is to make the two lists match.

While sitting at a traffic light he other day with my son in the car, there was a black guy in his car next to us who was singing with his music. He was, in fact, singing / rapping louder than his music. I was about to find him amusing when the light changed and he squirted water from a water bottle at my son’s open window. Had I been a quick off the line type of driver, my son and I would have gotten soaking wet as the guy continued spraying it all the way through the intersection. Fortunately the only thing that got wet was the front of my car.

The whole incident just made me wonder why people hate other people that they have never met. Maybe hate is a strong word, but I am not sure what else to call it. I presume this young man was just having fun, but I also presume he would not have done this if I were another black man. That thought created another line of thought. How many people don’t like me for being who I am?

I am a white, Christian, middle-income, American, male. It seems everyone of those titles holds me guilty of something to someone. By being white, I am responsible for slavery and prejudice against a host of other races. By being Christian, I am offending many Atheists and Agnostics with my beliefs, not to mention being hated by many other religions around the world. As a middle-income citizen, the wealthier people tend to look on me as a lower-class citizen and those who are in a lower income bracket than I, seem to imagine that I look at them the same way.

Being American, seems to make many people from other countries want to blow me up or hold me responsible for the actions of my country’s government, whether I agree with it or not. And being a man, makes me guilty of oppression to women. Am I really guilty of all of these heinous crimes? No. Do people really hold me responsible for these actions. Probably some of them do.

However, there is a bigger question for me. Do I judge other people based on these same type of standards? I would like to say absolutely not, but in reality, I think we all have some sort of prejudice or preconceived ideas about others, just by who they are or how they dress, etc. I hope that we can get past this because it is not how we were created to be. Our Creator loves each of us for who we are. Is it so impossible for us to do the same?

If you spend much time online these days you are likely aware of the new trends in building relationships. For that matter some of them are not just online based. It seems the more we develop new ways to communicate with one another, the less we actually see people face to face. However, I think this is having an effect on our real relationships.

With the onset of MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc, we have a great way to keep up with what our friends are doing. It doesn’t stop there. Many companies have found ways to use this as a marketing method for their businesses. Also, we should not forget the many social dating sites that we can use to find someone to marry or we can have cyber-dates and never even meet the person.

My question is where does this leave our relationships? Jesus told us that the two greatest commandments where to love God first and to love others next. These came before everything else. However, I don’t think it is possible to do either one of these jobs well without human interaction. We certainly cannot build strong personal relationships with other people unless we can actually meet them. Too much of our communication comes from seeing a persons expression or hearing the tone in their voice. You just don’t get the full effect from a smiley face in an email. That is where the problem comes into play for me as a Christian.

If I am ever going to live a life that reflects Jesus to others, then there needs to be someone there to see that reflection. I don’t think it is possible to share the full impact of the Christian life on Facebook. It has to be through personal relationships. Evangelism works best when we are sharing our faith with someone who knows us and has seen that faith lived out through our lives. I encourage you to get out there and share your life with someone. Share their pains and joys. Share their hobbies and interests. Work side by side with them. Then they will be a lot more receptive to the faith they have seen at work in you.