What Really Matters - The Crosswalk Devotional - October 29

What Really Matters
By Meg Bucher

“For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return.” - Phil 1:10 NLT

Motherhood pushes the fleetness of time into overdrive. When the fall rolls around and my daughters get ready to go back to school, my social media feed is flooded with memories from all the other first-day-of-school pics over the years. How can time go so fast? How can we love other little humans so much? With each passing year, I become more aware of the pressing urgency to pass wisdom down to them. My instinct is to prepare and protect them. I understand the urgency in Paul’s prose. I want my daughters to understand what really matters and to live pure and blameless lives. I do the best I can to articulate love into every area of their lives, but I know as surely as my days are numbered on this earth, my words fall short. The author of Hebrews wrote:

“Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:23-25 NLT)

Just because we don’t always get it right doesn’t mean we should give up. Persistent faith in the Lord will carry us through the days which break our hearts and give us words when ours our depleted. “I want you to understand what really matters,” Paul said. What really matters? “We ought to pray for moral discernment so we can maintain Christ’s perspective on what really matters,” The Life Application Bible says, “In every situation, consistently choosing the best course of action will yield tremendous benefits for us and those around us. Always think about what will be of lasting value.”

Intersecting Faith and Life:
The pit in my stomach starts to swirl when the Lord is convicting me to be cautious or alerting me to take action. The decisions we make in our everyday lives can either lead to pure and blameless lives or be heaped in the consequences of incorrect choices. Paul’s adamant to get his message across. Every decision matters. We cannot walk through life without pausing to perceive what is happening around us. To know what really matters takes mature discernment. Discernment is the acuteness of judgment and understanding. To discern is to “perceive by the sight or some other sense or by the intellect.”

Our decisions affect the people God has purposefully placed in our lives to love. When we consider the effect our decision will have upon others, we are more cautious than if we were just thinking about ourselves. The author of Hebrews wrote:

“You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.” (Hebrews 5:11-14 NLT)

When my daughters were young, I read a devotional book with them every night. I cherished the conversations we would have and loved hearing their little voices pray to their big God. Over time, though, I knew they needed to grow beyond just a devotional at bedtime. The next step for them became the kids' program at our local church. They looked forward to going every Sunday and eventually jumped into volunteering and serving as they got older. Now they are teens, and they are active in their local youth group. I miss bedtime devotions with their tiny voices praying to their great big God. But I love watching them grow into their faith on their own accord. This past year, my oldest daughter went on her first mission trip.

In our everyday lives, God is faithful to meet us where we are at. He wants us to understand what really matters.

Further Reading:

Meg writes about everyday life within the love of Christ at megbucher.com. She is the author of “Friends with Everyone, Friendship within the Love of Christ,” “Surface, Unlocking the Gift of Sensitivity,” “Glory Up, The Everyday Pursuit of Praise,” “Home, Finding Our Identity in Christ,” and "Sent, Faith in Motion." Meg earned a Marketing/PR degree from Ashland University but stepped out of the business world to stay home and raise her two daughters …which led her to pursue her writing passion. A contributing writer for Salem Web Network since 2016, Meg is now thrilled to be a part of the editorial team at Salem Web Network. Meg loves being involved in her community and local church, leads Bible study, and serves as a youth leader for teen girls.