A crucial reminder for those leading ministry and making disciples, whether as your full-time vocation or simply as a part of the calling of every Christian: Jesus is more important than your ministry.
Jesus is more important than the sermon you’re preparing to preach to 500 people this coming Sunday. Jesus is more important than accomplishing the mission of your missional community. Jesus is more important than your 5 year vision. Jesus is more important than the conversation that you’re planning on having with your neighbor about Jesus’ power to save.
Proper Priorities
As we start a new week let’s make sure we have our priorities properly ordered. It’s surprisingly easy to put a higher priority on getting the work of ministry done than on simply being with, knowing, and delighting in Jesus. But when we begin to shift our priorities in that way we begin to move into idolatry.
We must, like Paul in Philippians, be able to honestly and authentically say that everything else is like three week old leftovers in the back of the fridge when compared with how much we value knowing and being known by Christ Jesus our Lord. We will know our priorities are right when we’re able to truthfully say, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Philippians 3:8)
Proper Profit
Then Jesus told his disciples,
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?
Matthew 16:24-26
What will it profit a pastor if he preaches an insightful series through Romans and he loses his love for Jesus? What will it profit a missional community entrepreneur if he or she successfully launches a disciple-making movement but forfeits his or her intimacy with Jesus? What will it profit the gifted evangelist if he leads 5,000 to profess faith but slowly loses his ability to abide in Christ?
The profit of the Christian life is found in our intimate connection with the Father through the Son and Spirit. The quality of your life in Christ isn’t determined by your success in any metric other than love, and even that is something that comes only as a response to the received love of God’s goodness and grace.
Jesus is more important than your ministry. More important than your next counseling session with the couple whose marriage is falling apart. More important than your next leadership meeting where you’ll decide the future of your church. Put Him first and everything else will come into place.
How do you do so, you ask? It starts your heart, and one of the biggest evidences of where your heart is is what you have on your calendar.
Proper Plan
How will your calendar and task list this week prove that Jesus is the most valuable thing in your life? A couple simple ideas:
- Calendar off a block of time each day for prayer. Not the kind of prayer where you’re asking Jesus to bless your plans or your tasks; the kind of prayer where you’re simply enjoying and delighting in how beautiful Jesus is.
- Leverage worship to lift your heart. Make space in the midst of a busy day to turn on some worship music and lift your spirit to the one who created and saved you. Let the lyrics re-settle your mind and heart on things above.
- Change the agenda of one of your meetings or events from getting stuff done to simply talking about how amazing Jesus is. Set aside the agenda and just enjoy.
Regardless of how we do it, make sure that your plan for your life reflects the reality that Jesus is the most important one in any room. Let’s not forget to make space and time in our lives to join with the myriad of angels and saints who are, at this moment, “saying with a loud voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”
Revelation 5
May we, with every inch of our lives, say with the saints and angels, amen and amen.
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