I was sitting in a little coffee shop overlooking the ocean, watching the boats far out to sea. Suddenly I became conscious that a man at the next table was saying something interesting, and loudly enough for everyone around him to hear. His companion had asked him the question, "Why did you dismiss Henry from your office staff?"

"Because he had no sense of values," the man replied. "He didn't value life, health, or money, and this began to affect my business. Whenever I wanted him, he was taking a coffee break. It seemed to me that he valued a cup of coffee more than his job--and I warned him about that a number of times."

A light wind had risen, and the little sailboats on the horizon skimmed over the water. As I watched them and thought about Henry, I wondered how many people like him just skim over the surface of life, never having any sense of values and living off the nonessentials while the things that are truly worthwhile in life get crowded out.

Can you imagine someone ruining an expensive pair of gloves by picking up a penny from an oily driveway, or lighting a dollar bill to find a lost penny in the gutter? Well, there are people like Henry who do that with their lives, and they do it because they lack a sense of values.

I wonder sometimes if that's what's the matter with our confused world. On a stupendous scale, we have put the emphasis on material things instead of spiritual things.

Jesus' emphasis was always on the spiritual. What's the great, outstanding purpose of life? What are we here for? God has entrusted us with the sacred responsibilities of loving Him, pleasing Him, and loving others, but do we truly put those things first? Too often we shove God and the things of the spirit aside in order to give some trivial, momentary interest first place.

When that's the case, all of life is thrown out of balance and the result is only disharmony and confusion, and the only remedy is to put God back in His rightful place.

Do you let little trivialities and material things come before your relationship with God or finding His best for you through reading His Word and prayer?

Are the things that really matter in the proper perspective in your life? Do you have a sense of values? Or do you let little trivialities and material things come before your relationship with God or finding His best for you through reading His Word and prayer?

The Bible contains the Word of God. There's life in that Word. It's food for your soul and absolutely essential to your spiritual growth. If you excuse yourself by saying you don't have time for it, then your soul will suffer; you will be stunted spiritually.

Prayer is communion with God. Without prayer, you go through life powered only by your own puny strength and wisdom, when you could have His. God's Word says, "Without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), but it also says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13). The Lord's strength comes only through prayer and reading His Word.

A friend of mine spent all of her years scraping, digging, and slaving to build and decorate a little cottage where she could be comfortable for a few years, and just a few months after it was finished she was stricken with an incurable disease. While I was at her bedside she said to me, "Time is closing in on me! I spent the little time I had on things that don't have a bit of value in the place where I'm going." She had a sense of values, but too late. How sad!

I wish sometimes we could see all the events of life framed in the results they lead to. What a change there would be in our lives! We wouldn't give priority to trivialities when eternal things are calling.

The one that lives only for today instead of for eternity has no sense of values. Every day someone will say, not in words, perhaps, but by his actions, "I just don't care about getting a mansion in Heaven. I'm not interested in eternal things. Give me a mansion here instead, or a little fame and glory. I'll take my satisfaction here." And the King of kings who has offered him a crown of glory and an eternal Home among the mansions of Heaven is put aside for these "other things" that really have no value. Please don't let that be you!