Our Presiding Bishop Charles E. Blake, Sr. asks us 10 soul-searching questions to compel us to examine the priorities of our lives, and to pursue a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ.

In the story in John 4:45-47, a nobleman’s son was dying. The boy’s family was rich. He had the best of care, he had the best medical attention, the best doctors, but all to no avail. It was about this time that the nobleman realized that Jesus had returned to Cana, so he rushed to Cana – which was about a day’s journey by foot – to seek the help of Jesus Christ.

Being a nobleman and an officer of the king, I’m sure he usually sent folks to get whoever he wanted to see, but this was a matter of such urgency and importance, he had to go himself. This nobleman’s life was turned upside down.

Have you ever had an experience that changed the whole nature and course of your life? Have you ever had an experience that caused you to reexamine your priorities, to reevaluate how you spent your time and your energy? Has someone you really love and depended on let you down and disappointed you to the degree that your life was impacted? Have you ever pursued an objective and once you obtain that objective you found that it was far from being worth the trouble you went through to obtain it? Has there ever been someone in your life that you did not prioritize or value until they were no longer in your life?

SET PRIORITIES FOR YOUR LIFE

Your priorities ought to be built around the following questions. Ask yourself:

1. At the end of my life, what will I wish I had given my attention to?
2. As I look upon my life, what pursuits, what endeavors genuinely promise the most lasting and fulfilling emotional and mental benefits?
3. What role have I allowed God to have in the planning of my life?
4. Have I listed, from most important to least important, the various pursuits and people that I value?
5. Have I adequately examined those things that I consider to be basic and essential to my life?
6. What course of life will result in the least regret, the least confusion, the least hassle in my life?
7. Do my pursuits conform to my beliefs about God, God’s Word, the Holy Bible?
8. As I set my priorities, what is right? What is just?
9. What will bring me peace? What will bring peace to the people who are around me?
10. How can I find personal fulfillment?

We all agree that those are very, very important questions. And these are questions that we often seek to avoid and we seldom really ask except when trouble comes. Trouble can sometimes help you to sort out what your priorities should really be, but it’s best to sort things out before you have trouble.

The nobleman in this passage of scripture was in trouble, but this nobleman was persistent. He could have walked away, but his love and his concern for his son and his faith in Jesus Christ compelled him to persist.

PUT JESUS FIRST IN YOUR LIFE

Jesus wants to establish a relationship with you. His Word will fill you with faith. The Word of God will help you trust God and to walk in the power and anointing of Almighty God.

Make Jesus the priority of your life.

SCRIPTURAL REFERENCES: John 4:45-47, Romans 10:17, Matthew 6:33.

Adapted from the sermon “The Power of Faith”; at West Angeles Church of God In Christ, Presiding Bishop Charles Edward Blake, Sr.

Photo, Jon Tyson for Unsplash.