What do you value most in life? I’ve seen on FB all these posts with beautiful houses in the woods, on beaches, out in the middle of nowhere and the words state, “Could you live here for a year with no internet, no cell phone, no Facebook?” I know that personally I could do it because I’m glad to give up all technology and just enjoy God’s creation and beauty. However, I know too many people that place too much value on all technology.
Many of us say, “I can give up anything for what I want.” After all many of us would have sung that hymn: “All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I Freely Give.” But how true are those words for us as we sing them?
God has a purpose and plan for every one of us. That purpose is for Him to be able to use us to His fullest desire, each of us have to prioritize what matters most. In other words, we need to clarify our values, weigh up what is important to us and then bring them into agreement with our actions.
Joshua 1:8 tells us, “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” They also affect our salvation. Jesus said that it is possible to be outwardly successful—financially, socially and every other way—and be spiritually bankrupt on the inside. He said, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?”
How many of us have come home from work, school or wherever, grumpy as anything, having had the worst day ever and seen our mood affect those around us! In simple terms, that is how much your values affect others also. Today, I want us to look at how you live a value-based life?
- Choose Your Source
Where are you going to get your values from? this is very important because the source of your values will determine the quality of your values. For instance, would you consider the Columbus Dispatch a good source for values? How about TV talk shows?
Where do we get our values? We get them from a lot of places: parents, peers, magazines and books, from music, from society in general.
One major value giver IS the media. The average American watches about 5 hours of TV a day. That means that by the time we turn 65 years old the average American will have watched an average of 109,500 hours of TV—tell me where we’re getting our primary values.
1 John 2:15-16 (NKJV) “Do not love the world or the things of the world….for all that is in the world; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life; is not of the Father but is of the world.”
1 John 2:15-16 (MES) “Don’t love the world’s ways—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from Him.”
This was written over 2,000 years ago and it’s still relevant today because the world’s values have not changed. The world has always had three basic values in life. These 3 things are what the world says is important.
Pleasure. Pleasure is a primary value in this world. (the lust of the flesh)
Possessions. (the lust of the eyes)
Prestige. That is: power or position or popularity. (the pride of life)
If you ask most people, “What do you want out of life?” They’ll say, “I want to have fun…. I want to be happy…I want to feel good.” That’s different ways of saying pleasure. We live in a pleasure-obsessed culture. If it feels good, do it was the saying that was going around when I was coming up.
I think we’ll stop there for this time around. I’ll post more about this next time. We need to take a close look at our values and realize that most of us, if not all, have them all screwed up. They need changed. That’s what we’re doing at CW Church. Working on change. We start with our heart, which then affects how we think, act, and look at God’s people. He has called us out to be His Holy People. Come and join us as we change together. Until then…
Pastor Rob
