Circumstantial Priorities

If I were to offer you a fistful of diamonds, or a glass of cool clear water, which would you choose? The diamonds – obviously! Who in their right mind wouldn’t? But if you found yourself crawling through a desert, your lips are blistered, your tongue is swollen, you are dying of thirst, and I was to offer you a glass of cool clear water, or a fistful of diamonds, you would despise the diamonds and say; “Give me the water lest I die!” That’s what is known as ‘circumstantial priorities.’ Your priorities change according to your circumstances.

If there was a way for you to get eternal life, would you be interested? Of course you would! Anyone in their right mind would! The Bible shows us the way of eternal life, but right now, perhaps, you’re not interested. Is this because you prefer the sparkling diamonds of your sin?

What if your circumstances were to radically change? What if the Bible’s warning of a coming Day of Judgment were true? Would you be ready to face God?

Are you morally good enough to get to Heaven? Would you consider yourself to be a ‘good’ person?

Compare yourself with the Ten Commandments (the Law we must face on Judgment Day) to test how ‘good’ you really are…

1.Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
3.Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.
4.Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5.Honour thy father and thy mother.
6.Thou shalt not kill.
7.Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8.Thou shalt not steal.
9.Thou shalt not bear false witness.
10.Thou shalt not covet.

Have you ever used the name of God the Father or the Lord Jesus Christ as a curse word? If so, then you have likened the one who has given you your life, eyes, family, food, friends, every good thing, to a filth word. Do you know how serious blasphemy is in God’s eyes? The Bible says: “The LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain” (Exodus 20:7). Can you even begin to imagine the offence you cause to God when you use His name as a mere expression of disgust? Jesus warned; “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36).

It is important to realise that God’s judgment will even extend to; “Every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:14). Jesus said: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man” (Mathew 15:19-20). With this in mind, consider that the Bible even equates hatred with murder. It says; “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15). Jesus said: “Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment” (Matthew 5:22). Do you hate anyone? Do you get angry without a cause?

Jesus taught: “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, that whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matt 5:27-28). Have you ever looked with lust? Are you an adulterer at heart?

Have you ever stolen? What does that make you? (The value and whether you were caught is irrelevant).

Have you ever lied? What does that make you? Isn’t it true, that if you tell one lie it makes you a liar?

God has given us all a conscience, so when we break God’s laws we do it with knowledge that it’s wrong. Please listen to the voice of your conscience, let it remind you of the sins of your past. The truth is we have all broken God’s Commandments.

How can God (who is perfect) let liars, thieves, adulterers, blasphemers and murderers into Heaven? If God is ‘good’ then He must punish sin wherever it is found. Scripture gives a sobering warning: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8). “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21).

The Bible calls us ‘self-righteous’ if we think we are ‘good’ when we are not, and declares; “God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5). Jesus said: “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15).

On Judgment Day, every sin we have ever committed will be brought out into the light. God cannot overlook our sin, and like any ‘good’ judge, God will judge us by the laws we have broken, not by the laws we have kept. So how will you fare in God’s courtroom? Have you kept the Ten Commandments? If not then you will fall into the hands of a God who is furious with mans sin, a God who describes Himself as a “Consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). The Bible warns: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). Jesus warned: “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).

Does it concern you that if you died right now, you would end up in Hell? Does it concern you enough to at least seek a solution to your problem?

In every generation, God has pointed sinners to His solution. In His great love, God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to fulfil the law, and pay the penalty which our sins deserved. We sinned, yet Jesus died in our place. When Jesus rose again, He proved to the world that He had triumphed over the curse of sin and death. The Bible declares: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). All of God’s anger and wrath was poured out upon Him, so that sinners (or lawbreakers) like you could go free.

Jesus said: “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). Today, you must repent, which means to turn away from sin, and instead, turn towards God. Cast the sparkling diamonds of your sin far from you, and instead thirst after the water of life, which flows freely from Jesus Christ. Put all of your faith, hope and trust in what Jesus did on the cross. There is nothing you can do to save yourself, only faith that Christ has died for your sin will shelter you from God’s wrath on Judgment Day. Jesus said; “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life” (John 6:47). If you truly repent and put your faith in Jesus, God promises to grant you the gift of everlasting life, to wash away your sin and make you a new person with new desires to serve God.

So what are you going to do? Are you still determined to cling onto the sparkling diamonds of your sin? Jesus said; “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal” (John 12:25).

Please pick up a Bible (KJV), search the scriptures to see if these things are true, and may God, in His mercy, lead you to saving faith in Jesus Christ.