Forsaken Priorities
Forsaken Priorities
Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
—James 4:15–17
The story is told of a man riding his motorcycle along a winding country road. He stopped to talk with a preacher standing in the churchyard. The motorcyclist told the preacher he was on his way to town to sell his motorcycle. Paraphrasing James 4:15, the parson replied, “You ought to say, ‘I am riding to town to sell my motorcycle . . . if it be the Lord’s will.’ ” The man rolled his eyes, laughed out loud, and mocked the preacher’s words. Then he roared off down the two-lane road sending up a cloud of gravel in his wake.
Late that afternoon the preacher was sitting on his front porch watching the sun go down. He looked down the long road and noticed a man stumbling and staggering from one side of the road to the other. As the preacher stood up for a better view, he noted that it was the same man with whom he had visited earlier in the day. The man’s pants were torn to shreds, exposing his bruised and bloody knees. His right arm was in a makeshift sling. His shirt was half ripped off his back. His face was red and swollen, and one eye was completely shut. His hair was disheveled. His arms were scraped, and little pieces of gravel were embedded in them. Hurrying to his aid, the preacher inquired, “What happened?”
The man stammered, “After I left you, a big storm came out of nowhere. I tried to outrun it, but the rain pelted down upon me like lumps of lead. As I was going around a curve, I hit some loose gravel, and the motorcycle slid out from under me. I skidded a hundred feet on the pavement. I managed to get up, but the motorcycle was a total loss. Somehow I made my way to a nearby farmhouse. As I approached the door, a frightened woman pointed a shotgun in my face. I started running. She started shooting. And it started raining. I ran through the brush and briars. Finally, I came into a clearing and got under a tree to shield myself from the rain. As I stood there trying to pick the buckshot out of my backside, lightning struck the tree and knocked me out. When I came to, I started walking down this road.”
The preacher then asked, “Well, where are you going now?”
The man replied, “I am going home”—and then he quickly added, “If it be the Lord’s will!”
In today’s passage, James was calling on us to get our priorities in order and to remember the bottom line when we make any and all our plans: “If it be the Lord’s will.” James was reminding us to not forsake God’s will and God’s way as we set our priorities.
GOD’S WILL
God does not veil His will from any of us who earnestly seek it. He wants us to not only know His will but to walk in it. Paul addressed this very point, saying, “[We] do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Colossians 1:9).
True success in life is in finding God’s will for our lives and then doing it—and according to that definition, few people have known the kind of success that the apostle Paul did. His driving motivation was to find God’s will and do it, and he repeatedly said so. Upon leaving the believers in the church he planted in Ephesus, for instance, he said, “I will return again to you, God willing” (Acts 18:21). To those in the troubled church at Corinth, he wrote, “I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills” (1 Corinthians 4:19). And to the church in Rome he wrote, “I make mention of you always in my prayers, making request if, by some means, now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you” (Romans 1:9–10). Paul was wise enough to know that all his plans should be made with the caveat “If the Lord wills.”
To avoid spiritual recession we need to keep our priorities straight, and that means that God’s desires should be our desires. The safest place in all the world is being in the middle of God’s will for your life.
GOD’S WAY
Forsaken priorities come with straying from God’s way in our lives as well as His will, and James now raised a yellow warning flag: “To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” For the most part, when we hear the word sin, we think only of sins of commission—those willful, outward acts that violate God’s law and love. But James was saying that our problem is not just doing what we shouldn’t (sins of commission), but also in not doing what we should (sins of omission). Doing wrong is sin; not doing right is a sin as well. For example, just as it is a sin to tell an outright lie, it is also a sin to know the truth and not tell it.
If you miss rewards in heaven, it will not only be because of sins of commission but also sins of omission. And knowing the gospel but not embracing it is the most serious of all the sins of omission. Jesus said, “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).
If you are numbered among those who think there will always be adequate time to get right with God, James was warning you. We are all only one heartbeat, one breath, away from eternity. Place your hand on your chest. Go ahead, do it. Feel your heart beating. It hasn’t missed a beat since you were in your mother’s womb. But at an already-appointed time, it will beat one last beat, followed by a final breath, and you will leave your body, the house you have lived in during this brief earthly journey. At that moment, what difference will it make if you have eaten vitamin-enriched foods, have acquired a lot of stuff, are buried in a mahogany casket, and are placed in a beautiful botanical garden—and then rise up in judgment to meet a God you don’t know?
It’s time to hear and heed James’s inspired advice. Stop making foolish presumptions about tomorrow. To avoid the arrogance of our age, which results in our own spiritual recession, maintain a proper perspective on life and align your personal priorities with the Lord’s. His will and His way are always best.
Just Do It! Forsaken priorities are the direct result of foolish presumptions. Now, I would never encourage anyone to get a body tattoo. However, I do challenge you to tattoo this phrase on your heart and mind: “If the Lord wills.” In order to best determine God’s will, be sure you know the Savior, be sure you know the Spirit, and be sure you know the Scripture. Trusting in Christ alone and knowing His gracious pardoning of your sin is the essential starting line. Then allow His Spirit within you to lead you according to His Word. God will never lead us to do anything contrary to what we find in Scripture. Also, as you meditate upon Scripture, you will often find His will for you right there in black and white. Then, just do it!
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