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Here’s the key to establishing right spiritual priorities. It’s a must in simplifying your life! The first law of success is to have the right goal. When we are without a goal, we live a purposeless life. Yahshua made our spiritual goal crystal clear: “Seek first the kingdom of Elohim and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).

      That wasn’t just a nice-sounding platitude. It is a principle Disciples must base their lives on! Seeking Yahweh’s Kingdom and His righteousness should affect all our activities, all our decisions, and all our thoughts.

      But how? In Ephesians 5:15-16, Paul admonishes us, “See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” How well do you use your time? What’s first in your life?

      Proper spiritual health requires prayer and Bible study. How much time do you use for these spiritual priorities – especially compared with, for example, watching television? How you use each day’s time demonstrates your real priorities – how much you seek Yahweh’s righteousness. If most of this day has already slipped by without any prayer or Bible study, you should seriously examine you priorities.   There are more important things to do than entertaining the physical senses.

       John put it in plain language: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 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” (1st John 2:15-16). If you are too busy to pray, too busy to study the Bible, too busy to spend time with your children, too busy to help others, then you are indeed too busy. Now, more than at any other time in history, we need to simplify our lives. We need to limit the number of activities that can tempt us to take time away from spiritual priorities.

       Satan’s world offers an almost unlimited variety of amusing, entertaining diversions. Some are obviously sinful. Others are merely wasters of time. Some are even worthwhile in themselves, but can nevertheless at times interfere with our spiritual needs. We must take control of our lives so we can bring even our thoughts into captivity to Yahshua Messiah (2nd Corinthians 10:5). We shouldn’t let circumstances run our lives. This is the key to understanding and maintaining the right spiritual priorities: We must simplify our lives until we can see clearly what we are doing with our lives and with our time.

Spend time with family

If you haven’t spent any time with your children all day, you have an Elohim given obligation that is more important than watching a sports event. If watching television causes you to sin against your own children, stop watching so much television.

In Western societies, many mothers consider it more important to work at some career than to stay at home and rear their children. Sometimes they do it because their husbands insist. Sometimes it is absolutely necessary, but many times it is not. Benefits of the extra income are usually shared with the children, but the material benefits do them no good in the long run because they were not given the amount of time and training they needed. “A child left to himself brings shame to his mother” (Proverbs 29:15).

Many fathers desert their wives and children and choose to work inordinate amounts of overtime. For some, extra work is the only way to sufficiently “provide for their own.” But for many, it’s a desire to go from sufficiency to abundance, or from abundance to surplus.

Some are struggling to make the payments on a second car, or perhaps a house larger than they really need or can afford. If material things cause us to sin to fail to meet our Elohim ordained responsibilities – we should cut them out of our lives.

Studies reveal working fathers spend an average of 10 minutes a day reading, talking or playing with their children. Working mothers spend 16 minutes a day. Children’s daily television time, whether or not their mother works, exceeds two hours. Are you one of these statistics?

If we continually stay up so late working that we are only half functioning, then we cannot pray as we ought to, not study effectively, nor train our children. If we accept so many job responsibilities that we cannot come home in a good mood, we aren’t loving others as Elohim commands.

Our two-fold priority

Our primary spiritual goal is to seek Yahweh’s Kingdom. But Yahshua didn’t stop there. He said we must also seek Yahweh’s righteousness. We can’t have one without the other.

Kind David clearly defines righteousness: “All your commandants are righteousness” (Psalms 199:172). Keeping Elohim’s commandments is vitally important. “The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of Elohim.” (1st Corinthians 6:9). Although the Kingdom is not yet ruling over all the earth, it must rule over us now.

Too many people want Elohim’s Kingdom to come simply so they won’t have to face and overcome their own problems. If your desire for Yahweh’s Kingdom is purely selfish, you will not be in Yahweh’s Kingdom. Yahweh will not give eternal life to any person whose basic motives are selfish.

And since Yahweh’s people will, with Yahshua, reign in Yahweh’s Kingdom (Daniel 7:27, Revelation 20:6), each individual is preparing for Elohim’s Kingdom by learning to rule righteously in whatever area where Yahweh has given us responsibility now. You have the chance to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

Yahshua commanded, “Seek first the kingdom of Elohim and His righteousness.” Notice what Yahshua Messiah promised. If we maintain the right priorities, “all these things (the food, drink and clothing we need) shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:25-33).

Yahweh will take care of us if we put Him first in our day-to-day lives. But it does require faith to seek the spiritual first. We must be willing to give our lives in obedience to Yahshua. Many have been killed because they obeyed Elohim. Of course, for many people, ridicule is worse than death. If you keep Yahweh’s laws, others may laugh at you. The real test of our priorities many times is not dying for our faith – it is living according to our faith. Look at your own life. If you are involved in so many activities that they cause you to sin, you must cut them out of your life.  You must simplify your life until you can think clearly.  Only then can you give proper priority to what you do, bring your thoughts into captivity and redeem the time. Remember, don’t just set goals, set the right goal, “Seek first the kingdom of Elohim and His righteousness.