5 Questions that reveal where you stand and what your priorities are in life
In the Bible, Jesus asked 307 questions. Interestingly, many times He didn’t answer the questions, He just asked them.
When a question is asked of you, it forces you to come to some conclusion or to decide in your own mind what the answer is to that question.
One of the most profound questions in Scripture is when Jesus asked Peter, “But who do you say I am?” That question and others like it can change your life when you take the time to think about it.
Many of us are good at making statements and giving answers, but sometimes we don’t spend as much time thinking about the questions we need to ask.
The answers to the questions of life can provide direction and clarity.
Let’s look at five questions today that reveal where you stand and what your priorities are in life. Your answers to these questions, when asked daily, will dictate how you should live your life for that particular day.
- Why am I here?
I don’t mean, why are you here in this place today? That’s a good question, too. But why are you alive in the twenty-first century? Why did God allow you to be here in 2022? What is the reason for your existence?
People answer this in different ways. When we are asked that question as Christians, we immediately know it’s to serve God – that’s just the answer we give. But how do we put that answer into action every day? We have many Bible verses that speak to this question.
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-39 NIV).
You are to give God your head, your heart and your hands! He wants your thoughts, your emotions and your actions. Loving your neighbor is reaching out with everything – internal and external.
How do you love God with your mind?
Thinking logically about things, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I do know God has been faithful. You can use what you already know – the facts of what He’s already done – to trust Him to always be faithful in the future.
You love God with your mind by:
- Telling yourself the truth. God has done this in the past, and He’ll do it again.
- Studying God’s Word. That means to meditate on Scripture and get out of it what God wants you to receive from it. You connect through your head with what goes to your heart too.
- Capturing your thoughts. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (NIV). You can do that if you keep your focus on God and remain in an attitude of praise, no matter what you’re going through.
Anything – good or bad – in the world today started as a thought.
Back to Jesus’ words: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-39 NIV).
The second part of this verse, to love our neighbors as ourselves, includes our family members. Your neighbor is up close. It’s easy to have negative thoughts and not tell ourselves the truth about our parents, our spouse, our children or siblings. Lying to ourselves damages relationships.
So, let’s look at the next question.
2. Who am I going to live for today?
- You can live for God. As a Christian, you get up every day and live for God.
- or, you can live for yourself.
Most of the world does, and frankly, we think that people who live for themselves aren’t unhappy, but the fact is many of the people living for themselves are very happy, humanly speaking. Now, there may be an emptiness in their soul in the quiet moments, but they’re not feeling what we think they should be feeling as a result of rejecting God. But people who live for themselves will eventually get to a point where self isn’t enough, and then they run into a wall. Then they’re forced to answer the questions, “Who am I really living for?” and “Why am I here?”
The Dangers of Double-mindedness
But the third way you can answer the question troubles me the most.
- You can live for yourself and for God.
As believers, if we’re being honest, we tend to live for both ourselves and God. It’s easy to live for both in our culture today. Scripture refers to that as being double-minded. The first chapter in the book of James talks about gaining wisdom. And James says, “… for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6-8 ESV).
When God’s wisdom is only one of many options we consider, and we don’t like what we hear, it’s easy to put God on mute. When we do that, He can’t speak to us, and His wisdom is not going to be available to us.
Sometimes we believe we know better in some areas of our life than God does. We try to use our own wisdom in those areas. And when we do, it’s hard for us to hear when he wants to speak to us in other areas, even when we’re open. James is telling us, if you want God’s wisdom, you’ve got to be sold out.
All of us have been double minded at times. Some of the symptoms of being double minded include:
- Seeking your own wisdom one time, and then God’s wisdom another time.
- Being unable to decide or to stick with a decision.
- Chronic indecision – torn between the desire to please the Lord or please yourself. Being double-minded causes stress, and that’s a good trigger to step back and start over.
- Stress.
- Confusion.
ONE THING
Award winner, author, transformational speaker and corporate trainer, Oscar Bimpong said, “If what you do TODAY will define your TOMORROW, then that means the FUTURE is NOW.”
What you’re doing today is a picture of what you will be tomorrow. Every day becomes compounding in your life, and it’s either productive or discouraging – in your relationships, your health, your finances – every area of your life.
Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (NIV).
3. What is my ONE THING for today?
The smartest thing to do is to align your plans to God’s plans. Scripture says we shouldn’t say I’m going to go to a certain city and build a business and be successful, but to add … if that is God’s will (James 4:13-15 paraphrased).
You have the choice to be intentional, unintentional or good intentioned. It comes down to the decision. Will you procrastinate? Will you do what you know you should be doing? Will you be scattered, doing a lot of things which creates wear on your life, or will you focus on doing the next, right one thing, which is to live each day intentionally for Christ?
What does it take to align your plans to God’s purposes?
- Know the Word of God and apply it correctly to daily living.
- Is what I am about to do God honoring?
- When it seems impossible to sort things out, seek godly counsel from those who may be able to be more objective.
- Ask God, what are You doing today that I should be a part of?
God moves in ways that we don’t understand. It’s easy for us to put God in the box of our own humanity. God has purposes that he’s working in the world, and it would seem logical that we’d want to be where He is doing that work. Maybe the prayer we should pray every day is, “God, what are you doing today that I can be a part of?” That’s how you can be intentional wherever God is working in your sphere of impact or influence.
God loves and cares for us, but sometimes our relationship with God stops at what he can do for us. You don’t want to miss being a part of the excitement of whatever it is that God’s doing. Aligning your plans to what God is doing is easier said than done. It takes spiritual discernment. Praying every morning; being in God’s Word; being sensitive and watching what’s going on and asking God how you can be used.
A great question every day is, “God, what one thing today do you have for me?”
4. How am I going to deal with today’s clutter?
De-cluttering is the act of confronting yourself. Clutter slows us down. Ecclesiastes 3:6 says there is a time to keep and a time to cast away (paraphrase).
Decluttering is the act of confronting yourself.
Satan loves to cause clutter in our minds, in our relationships, with stuff from the past. He tries to use those things as clutter to slow us down. And it does. Ecclesiastes 3:6 says, there is “a right time to hold on and another to let go” (MSG).
What is the clutter in your life that’s holding you back from being fully engaged? Sometimes the clutter is beyond our control, and we’ve got to live with it. It’s there; it’s just part of life. But we do not have to allow that to keep us from experiencing God’s best for our lives.
So, ask yourself, “How am I going to deal with today’s clutter?”
- When am I going to get started?
Am I going to do this intentionally today? Doing the next right ONE THING.
W. C. Fields said, “I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not sure.” And I think that’s the way we live our lives. We’re either indecisive or we’re not sure. And it comes back to being intentional – just getting at it and doing the next, right one thing.
Wouldn’t it be powerful if we could teach our children and grandchildren to ask and answer those five questions every day? It would change their lives.
I believe, if we keep these five questions in front of us every day, it will change our lives too.
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