I’m not asking what it should be. Nor am I asking what you would like for it to be. I’m asking you what it is. No, actually, I’m asking more than that. I’m asking what cause has given direction and purpose and definition to your life for the last six months (at least).<\/p>\n
This morning I got to thinking about this because of this fragment in the Scripture reading by one of our congregation’s ministers: “Is there not a cause?”<\/em> (1 Samuel 17:29).<\/p>\n That’s a question to search my heart, a question by which to evaluate my life! <\/p>\n For the Christian, the primary cause in life is loving God. Like this: “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind”<\/em> (Matthew 22:37).<\/p>\n I sidetrack myself a bit here to direct this paragraph to those who have given up on Christianity. If you’re one that declares Christianity didn’t work for you, please try again. But this time give yourself wholly to the only right primary cause in life. What you tried before didn’t work for one of two reasons: (1) You had the wrong cause all along, or (2) you came to deprioritize that cause. If you unconditionally give yourself to loving God first, most, always, and no matter what — well, life in the kingdom of Heaven will<\/em> “work” for you.<\/p>\n OK, back to where I was before that trip onto the siding…<\/p>\n As I’ve thought further about this, my mind has gone to some other verses:<\/p>\n “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness…”<\/em> (Matthew 6:33).<\/p>\n “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord…That I may know him…I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”<\/em> (Philippians 3:8,10,14).<\/p>\n “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth”<\/em> (Colossians 3:2).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n These are all different ways of expressing, manifesting, and living out the Christian’s primary cause in life.<\/p>\n All other causes for living either support the primary cause or spring from it. Nothing else is so important. Nothing else matters more.<\/p>\n That is life in the kingdom of Heaven.<\/p>\n If you are a Christian living something different, return to your first love (Revelation 2:4).<\/p>\n Jesus said, “One thing is needful…”<\/em> (Luke 10:42).<\/p>\n If you are trying to be a Christian “on the cheap” — that is, with the minimum commitment you can get away with — you have the wrong primary cause.<\/p>\n When we love God as He wants to be loved, we truly have a cause worth living for.<\/p>\n When we love God as He wants to be loved, we will discover and rediscover this repeatedly: His other requirements of citizens of the kingdom of Heaven are not burdensome. We will delight to do His will in all things, because our delight is in Him.<\/p>\n What are some other New Testament verses that speak of the Christian’s primary cause?<\/p>\n Disclaimer: I understand that the KJV rendition of the Hebrew in 1 Samuel 17:29 may not be the most accurate. But I’m using it here anyway because I’m not offering an exegesis of the verse nor a dissertation of it. I’m just using the verse to let you know what got me to thinking along these lines. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Get it right or go forever wrong!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[86],"tags":[96,51,44,31],"class_list":{"0":"post-2327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-collage","7":"tag-aspiration","8":"tag-discipleship","9":"tag-live-right","10":"tag-way-of-righteousness","11":"h-entry","12":"hentry","13":"h-as-article"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJBV-Bx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Give](\"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-content\/uploads\/givemethineheart-b.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Walk](\"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/pantinghart\/wp-content\/uploads\/walk-worthy.jpg\")
<\/p>\n