Seek First The Kingdom Of God Quotes

Seek first the kingdom of God, and then trust that He will take care of our needs, even before we know what they are and where we're going.

Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ``What shall we eat?'' or ``What shall we drink?'' or ``What shall we wear?'' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. - Matthew 6:25-34

So go marry someone, provided you're equally yoked and you actually like being with each other. Go get a job, provided it's not wicked. Go live somewhere in something with somebody or nobody. But put aside the passivity and the quest for complete fulfillment and the perfectionism and the preoccupation with the future, and for God's sake start making some decisions in your life. Don't wait for the liver-shiver. If you are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you will be in God's will, so just go out and do something.

We are told to seek first the kingdom of God, not seek first marriage.

I just don't think pastors should turn their pulpits into public policy platforms. It cheapens the gospel. Our congregation doesn't need another political opinion. They need spiritual revelation. They don't need to think about politics on the weekend. They need to be reminded to seek first the kingdom of God.

He continued, “The great fault in the evangelical movement today, is that we’re disobedient to the commands of the one we claim to follow. What were those commands? Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Care for widows and orphans. Visit those in prison. Seek first the kingdom of God.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matt. 6:33). God doesn’t need us to ask so that He will know what we want. He knows those needs already, so why does He require us to ask? I believe God instructs us to come to Him with our petitions so that He can infuse us with the answers. He needs us to focus on the need or desire so that He can put into us the blessings and gifts that will draw

In the deepest sense you shall make yourself nothing, become nothing before God, learn to be silent. In this silence is the beginning, which is to seek first God's kingdom

As long as we are worrying, we can’t seek first the kingdom of God. As long as we are seeking first the kingdom of God, we can’t worry.

Most of us have more than enough time to work with, even in busy seasons of life. We just have to reallocate our time to “seek first the kingdom of God,”7 not the kingdom of entertainment.

And so I urge you to still every motion that is not rooted in the Kingdom. Become quiet, hushed, motionless until you are finally centered. Strip away all excess baggage and nonessential trappings until you have come into the stark reality of the Kingdom of God. Let go of all distractions until you are driven into the Core. Allow God to reshuffle your priorities and eliminate unnecessary froth. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said, 'Pray for me that I not loosen my grip on the hands of Jesus even under the guise of ministering to the poor.' That is our first task: to grip the hands of Jesus with such tenacity that we are obliged to follow his lead, to seek first his Kingdom.

He (God) doesn't promise the journey won't be frustrating, and sadly, sometimes what we find at the end of the journey is not what we hoped for. But when your focus is on believing God has good things in store for you, if you follow Him--seeking His kingdom first--He can bless you with joy.

First we are to seek peace in our local fellowship, to end strife and to seek reconciliation with God and with one another, and out of this peace-shaped, kingdom-shaped church we spill over peace into the world.

We go along, taking for granted that tomorrow will be very much like today, comfortable in the world we have created for ourselves, secure in the established order we have learned to live with, however imperfect it may be, and give little thought to God at all. Somehow, then, God must contrive to break through those routines of ours and remind us once again, like Israel, that we are ultimately dependent only upon him, that he has made us and destined us for life with him through all eternity, that the things of this world and this world itself are not our lasting city, that his we are and that we must look to him and turn to him in everything. Then it is, perhaps, that he must allow our whole world to be turned upside down in order to remind us it is not our permanent abode or final destiny, to bring us to our senses and restore our sense of values, to turn our thoughts once more to him—even if at first our thoughts are questioning and full of reproaches. Then it is that he must remind us again, with terrible clarity, that he meant exactly what he said in those seemingly simple words of the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not be anxious about what you shall eat, or what you shall wear, or where you shall sleep, but seek first the kingdom of God and his justice.

Sure we all need money but what do you really focus on? It is a matter of the heart. If your thoughts are on material and worldly things, no good fruits can come out of it. Seek the kingdom of God first and the other things shall be added unto you not vice versa.

Modern prophets say that our economics have failed us. No! It is not our economics which have failed; it is man who has failed-man who has forgotten God. Hence no manner of economic or political readjustment can possibly save our civilization; we can be saved only by a renovation of the inner man, only by a purging of our hearts and souls; for only by seeking first the Kingdom of God and His Justice will all these other things be added unto us.

Prayer is primarily for loving and worshiping God. If you would seek first His kingdom and just fellowship with Him, you’d find your needs already provided.

Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (NKJV). Just

Seek first the kingdom of God and all other things will be added to you. Don't worry about the things. Seek Him first and watch Him work in you.

Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all other things shall be added to you.

The great fault of modern democracy -- a fault that is common to the capitalist and the socialist -- is that it accepts economic wealth as the end of society and the standard of personal happiness.... The great curse of our modern society is not so much lack of money as the fact that the lack of money condemns a man to a squalid and incomplete existence. But even if he has money, and a great deal of it, he is still in danger of leading an incomplete and cramped life, because our whole social order is directed to economic instead of spiritual ends. The economic view of life regards money as equivalent to satisfaction. Get money, and if you get enough of it you will get everything else that is worth having. The Christian view of life, on the other hand, puts economic things in second place. First seek the kingdom of God, and everything else will be added to you. And this is not so absurd as it sounds, for we have only to think for a moment to realise that the ills of modern society do not spring from poverty in fact, society today is probably richer in material wealth than any society that has ever existed. What we are suffering from is lack of social adjustment and the failure to subordinate material and economic goods to human and spiritual ones.

If you would ask God to help you,you would go to God in all your nakedness, approach God without reservations, also without fear or doubts as to how God can help a fallen being like you. God, who has helped millions who have approached him, is God going to desert you? God makes no exceptions whatsoever, and you will find that every one of your prayers will be answered. I am telling this out of my personal experience. I have gone through the purgatory. Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven, and everything will be added to you...

If we concern first with God’s Kingdom, we can inhabit all other kingdoms.

we will never add one spiritual brick in the Kingdom of God when it is our interests that we seek first.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;

If you are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you will be in God's will, so just go out and do something...Die to self. Live for Christ. And then do what you want, and go where you want, for God's glory.

Read the following passages of God's word, and see if religion be a light and easy work. "Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." "Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." "Labor for that food which endures unto eternal life." "Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life." "Whoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33). The principle that Jesus expressed in these words is the basic law that underlies all answer to prayer. Many people know this in theory but are confused about putting it into practice. They think, “I will ignore this problem and think about God instead.” Here there is a subtle mistake; because they are really thinking of their problem as existing in one place, of God as existing in another, and of themselves as going in thought from the first place to the second place. This, of course, is by implication to reaffirm the existence of the problem in its own place, and such a belief will not heal. What we have to do is to seek the Kingdom in the very place where the trouble seems to be. We have to know that in Truth and reality it is not there, because God is there. When we succeed in doing this, the difficulty disappears.

God’s great aim has always been, and will forever be, relationship with us. Sometimes, He may deprive us of something in order to draw us to Someone. And when we reciprocate—when we decide that we want Him more than we want His stuff—the most amazing thing happens. We are rewired and our requests are either altered as we grow to know and to prefer what He wants for us, or they are simply answered because, in seeking first the kingdom of God, “all these things” are given to us as well (Matt 6:33).

Christianity will indeed accomplish many useful things in this world, but if it is accepted in order to accomplish those useful things it is not Christianity. Christianity will combat Bolshevism; but if it is accepted in order to combat Bolshevism, it is not Christianity: Christianity will produce a unified nation, in a slow but satisfactory way; but if it is accepted in order to produce a unified nation, it is not Christianity: Christianity will produce a healthy community; but if it is accepted in order to produce a healthy community, it is not Christianity: Christianity will promote international peace; but if it is accepted in order to promote international peace, it is not Christianity. Our Lord said: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." But if you seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness in order that all those other things may be added unto you, you will miss both those other things and the Kingdom of God as well.

you of little faith? 31Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For  l the Gentiles seek after all these things, and  m your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33But  n seek first  o the kingdom of God and his righteousness,

When we do not desire the things of this world for their own sake, we become able to see them as they are. We see at once their goodness and their purpose, and we become able to appreciate them as we never have before. As soon as we are free of them, they begin to please us. As soon as we cease to rely on them alone, they are able to serve us. Since we depend neither on the pleasure nor on the assistance we get from them, they offer us both pleasure and assistance, at the command of God. For Jesus has said: “Seek first the kingdom of God, and His justice and all these things [that is all that you need for your life on earth] will be given to you besides” (Matthew 6:33).

The Kingdom of God is His kingship, His rule, His authority. When this is once realized, we can go through the New Testament and find passage after passage where this meaning is evident, where the Kingdom is not a realm or a people but God’s reign. Jesus said that we must “receive the kingdom of God” as little children (Mark 10:15). What is received? The Church? Heaven? What is received is God’s rule. In order to enter the future realm of the Kingdom, one must submit himself in perfect trust to God’s rule here and now. We must also “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (Matt. 6: 33). What is the object of our quest? The Church? Heaven? No; we are to seek God’s righteousness—His sway, His rule, His reign in our lives.

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:28-6:33). What does all that mean? Orient yourself properly. Then—and only then—concentrate on the day. Set your sights at the Good, the Beautiful, and the True, and then focus pointedly and carefully on the concerns of each moment. Aim continually at Heaven while you work diligently on Earth. Attend fully to the future, in that manner, while attending fully to the present. Then you have the best chance of perfecting both.

To be spiritual has only one real purpose. It is a means to an end, not the end itself. The goal of all spiritual exercise must be the goal of righteousness. God calls us to be holy. Christ sets the priority of the Christian life: "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matt. 6:33). The goal is righteousness.

read the Bible daily? That means every day without fail. Each of us should say to ourselves,“No Bible, no breakfast. No read, no feed.” Be like Job, who “treasured the words of His mouth more than [his] necessary food” (Job 23:12, emphasis added). The key is to put your Bible before your belly—to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. If we are not “disciples” of Christ—disciplined to His Word—we will more than likely reproduce after our own kind. If we are worldly and undisciplined, our kids may grow up to follow our poor example of what a Christian should be. If we are hypocrites, we may just reproduce hypocrites. What greater parental betrayal could there be than to lead your children to hell? So esteem God’s Word more than your necessary food, and teach your kids to do the same.

How do I know what God’s will is for my life? I grew up asking this question and feeling a great deal of pressure when it came to decisions like whether I should get married, which college to go to, what career to choose. Now, rather than asking what God’s will is for my life, I find it helpful instead to ask what God’s will is and how my life might fit into that. Maybe that’s what it means to seek first the kingdom of God—the world does not revolve around us, but rather we are revolving around God. That relieves the pressure a bit because we know that God’s will is for the hungry to have food, the homeless to have housing, the oppressed to be set free, and we get to be a part of that. The question then becomes how we can contribute to the redemptive work God is doing. Instead of asking God to bless what we’re doing, we can align ourselves with what God has already promised to bless—the poor, the merciful, the peacemakers—and know with confidence that God is blessing us, or more important, that we are blessing God.

First of all, let us not all be too glib in our statements about the will of God. God’s will is a profound and holy mystery, and the fact that we live our everyday lives engulfed in this mystery should not lead us to underestimate its holiness. We dwell in the will of God as in a sanctuary. His will is the cloud of darkness that surrounds His immediate presence. It is the mystery in which His divine life and our created life become “one spirit,” since, as St. Paul says, “Those who are joined to the Lord are one spirit” (I Corinthians 6: 17). There are religious men who have become so familiar with the concept of God’s will that their familiarity has bred an apparent contempt. It has made them forget that God’s will is more than a concept. It is a terrible and transcendent reality, a secret power which is given to us, from moment to moment, to be the life of our life and the soul of our own soul’s life. It is the living flame of God’s own Spirit, in Whom our own soul’s flame can play, if it wills, like a mysterious angel. God’s will is not an abstraction, not a machine, not an esoteric system. It is a living concrete reality in the lives of men, and our souls are created to burn as flames within His flame. The will of the Lord is not a static center drawing our souls blindly toward itself. It is a creative power, working everywhere, giving life and being and direction to all things, and above all forming and creating, in the midst of an old creation, a whole new world which is called the Kingdom of God. What we call the “will of God” is the movement of His love and wisdom, ordering and governing all free and necessary agents, moving movers and causing causes driving drivers and ruling those who rule, so that even those who resist Him carry out His will without realizing that they are doing so In all His acts God orders all things whether good or evil for the good of those who know Him and seek Him and who strive to bring their own freedom under obedience to His divine purpose All that is done by the will of God in secret is done for His glory and for the good of those whom He has chosen to share in His glory!

JUNE 17 I WILL BREAK THE CURSE OF POVERTY DO NOT WORRY about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet I feed them. You are more valuable to Me than they, and I know all that you need and desire. Seek My kingdom first, and My righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. I have broken the curse of poverty from your life. Blessings and prosperity will be yours, for prosperity is the reward of the righteous. Behold, I have plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. MATTHEW 6:25–33; PSALM 128:2; JEREMIAH 29:11 Prayer Declaration I break all curses of poverty, lack, debt, and failure in the name of Jesus. I seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all things are added unto me. I break all assignments of the enemy against my finances in the name of Jesus. The blessing of the Lord upon my life makes me rich. Wealth and riches are in my house because I fear God and delight greatly in following His Word. I am God’s servant, and He takes pleasure in my prosperity.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you,  jeven Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you,  kO you of little faith? 31Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For  lthe Gentiles seek after all these things, and  myour heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33But  nseek first  othe kingdom of God and his righteousness,  pand all these things will be added to you.

Bring all the tithes into the storehouse." What is God really asking for? Does He want a tenth part of their wheat, of their flocks, of their possessions, simply for Himself, to possess it? Assuredly not. He asks for the tenth part as a proof that they recognize His love toward them. The tithe is only valuable as a recognition of love, and the only force which is strong enough to provide the tithe is the consciousness of the truth of that first word of Malachi: "I have loved you, saith the Lord." If these people forget God loves, they will very soon forget to bring the tithe; and the only service that God seeks is the service of love that responds to His love.

This shows us that earth’s empires have their counterpart in Satan’s empire. In other words, Satan seeks to control the empires of earth through its rulers in order to make its leaders and governments instruments of his will. We must pray for our governments in order to frustrate Satan and to bring our governments under heaven’s control. That is why Paul said first of all—before you pray for the sick, the missionaries, the evangelists, even your family—to pray for the government. As we have seen, anyone who criticizes the government is telling the world that he has failed in his prayers. He has not done his job. He has allowed these dark angels to crowd in over the buildings where vital decisions are made that affect not only us but also the whole Kingdom of God. We must not tolerate that invasion of Satan.

Joy is a two-way street. It is being human turned to God; and it is being (the instrument of) God, turned to humankind. The soul, turned to God, becomes irradiated with Divinity, simply by becoming transparent to that Divine Light, which is its Source. And that Divine Light shines through the soul, illumining all who come in contact with it. Recall that Jesus held this very same position (...): 'First', he said, 'seek the kingdom of God'; in other words, you cannot really do much for others or shed any light in the world until first you find that light within yourself. The Light Itself will do what is necessary for humankind; our only task is to rid ourselves of all that tends to obscure that Light---in other words, our ignorance, our selfish attachment to our make-believe world of self-gratification, our inner darkness.

I would read the Scriptures longingly, trying to imagine how wonderful it would be not to worry about anything, safe and secure in the presence of Jesus all the time. Miracles would be normal. Love would be natural. We could always give and never lose. We could be lied to, cheated and stolen from, and yet we would always come out ahead. We would never have to take advantage of anyone or have any motive but to bless other people. Rather than always making contingency plans in case Jesus didn’t do anything, we could count on Him continually. We, our lives and all that we preach and provide would not be for sale, but would be given freely, just as we have received freely. Our hearts would be carefree in the love of our Father in heaven, who always knows what we need, and we could get on with the glorious business of seeking first His Kingdom and His righteousness. There would always be enough!

The Lord’s Prayer Expanded Our Father, Holy Father, Abba Father, in the heavens, Hallowed, holy, sacred be your name. From the rising of the sun, to the going down of the same, The name of the Lord is to be praised. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts, The whole earth is full of your glory. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, Who was and is and is to come. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Thy government come, thy politics be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Thy reign and rule come, thy plans and purposes be done, On earth as it is in heaven. May we be an anticipation of the age to come. May we embody the reign of Christ here and now. Give us day by day our daily bread. Provide for the poor among us. As we seek first your kingdom and your justice, May all we need be provided for us. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Transform us by the Holy Spirit into a forgiving community of forgiven sinners. Lead us not into trouble, trial, tribulation or temptation. Be mindful of our frame, we are but dust, We can only take so much. Lead us out of the wilderness into the promised land that flows with milk and honey, Lead us out of the badlands into resurrection country. Deliver us from evil and the evil one. Save us from Satan, the accuser and adversary. So that no weapon formed against us shall prosper. So that every tongue that rises against us in accusation you will condemn. So that every fiery dart of the wicked one is extinguished by the shield of faith. So that as we submit to you and resist the devil, the devil flees. So that as we draw near to Jesus Christ lifted up, His cross becomes for us the axis of love expressed in forgiveness, That refounds the world; And the devil, who became the false ruler of the fallen world, Is driven out from among us. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen

On undetached people who are full of self-will.4 People say: ‘O Lord, I wish that I stood as well with God and that I had as much devotion and peace with God as other people, and that I could be like them or could be as poor as they are.’ Or they say: ‘It never works for me unless I am in this or that particular place and do this or that particular thing. I must go to somewhere remote or live in a hermitage or a monastery.’ Truly, it is you who are the cause of this yourself, and nothing else. It is your own self-will, even if you don’t know it or this doesn’t seem to you to be the case. The lack of peace that you feel can only come from your own self-will, whether you are aware of this or not. Whatever we think – that we should avoid certain things and seek out others, whether these be places or people, particular forms of devotion, this group of people or this kind of activity – these are not to blame for the fact that you are held back by devotional practices and by things; rather it is you as you exist in these things who hold yourself back, for you do not stand in the proper relation to them. Start with yourself therefore and take leave of yourself. Truly, if you do not depart from yourself, then wherever you take refuge, you will find obstacles and unrest, wherever it may be. Those who seek peace in external things, whether in places or devotional practices, people or works, in withdrawal from the world or poverty or self-abasement: however great these things may be or whatever their character, they are still nothing at all and cannot be the source of peace. Those who seek in this way, seek wrongly, and the farther they range, the less they find what they are looking for. They proceed like someone who has lost their way: the farther they go, the more lost they become. But what then should they do? First of all, they should renounce themselves, and then they will have renounced all things. Truly, if someone were to renounce a kingdom or the whole world while still holding on to themselves, then they would have renounced nothing at all. And indeed, if someone renounces themselves, then whatever they might keep, whether it be a kingdom or honour or whatever it may be, they will still have renounced all things. St Peter said, ‘See, Lord, we have left everything’ (Matt. 19:27), when he had left nothing more than a mere net and his little boat, and a saint5 comments that whoever willingly renounces what is small, renounces not only this but also everything which worldly people can possess or indeed even desire. Whoever renounces their own will and their own self, renounces all things as surely as if all things were in that person’s possession to do with as they pleased, for what you do not wish to desire, you have given over and given up to God. Therefore our Lord said, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ (Matt. 5:3), which is to say those who are poor in will. Let no one be in any doubt about this: if there were a better way, then our Lord would have told us, who said, ‘If anyone would follow me, he must first deny himself’ (Matt 16:24). This is the point which counts. Examine yourself, and wherever you find yourself, then take leave of yourself. This is the best way of all.

Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ``What shall we eat?'' or ``What shall we drink?'' or ``What shall we wear?'' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Jesus’ mood is determined and decisive: He is on the way to Jerusalem, and He wants followers who can count the cost. The three different levels of commitment shown in people He met expose the ways many Christians relate to their discipleship today. The first man made a grand, pious commitment that went no deeper than words. He promised to follow the Master wherever He went. Jesus challenged the man to count the cost. So often we come to Christ to receive what we want to solve problems or gain inspiration for our challenges. He gives both with abundance, but then calls us into a ministry of concern and caring. We are to do for others what He has done for us. Loving and forgiving are not always easy. The second man had unfinished business from the past. He wanted to follow Christ, but a secondary loyalty kept him tied to the past. In substance, Christ said, “Forget the past; follow Me!” The third person wanted to say goodbye to his family. Jesus stresses the urgency of our commitment. Our commitment must be unreserved to seek first His kingdom. Are there entangling loyalties you have brought into the Christian life that make it difficult to give your whole mind and heart and will to Christ?

October 25 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33 SEE how the Bible opens: “In the beginning God.” Let your life open in the same way. Seek with your whole soul, first and foremost, the kingdom of God, as the place of your citizenship, and his righteousness as the character of your life. As for the rest, it will come from the Lord himself without your being anxious concerning it. All that is needful for this life and godliness “shall be added unto you.” What a promise this is! Food, raiment, home, and so forth, God undertakes to add to you while you seek him. You mind his business, and he will mind yours. If you want paper and string, you get them given in when you buy more important goods; and just so all that we need of earthly things we shall have thrown in with the kingdom. He who is an heir of salvation shall not die of starvation; and he who clothes his soul with the righteousness of God cannot be left of the Lord with a naked body. Away with carking care. Set all your mind upon seeking the Lord. Covetousness is poverty, and anxiety is misery: trust in God is an estate, and likeness to God is a heavenly inheritance. Lord, I seek thee; be found of me.

Do Not Be Anxious 25 e “Therefore I tell you,  f do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 g Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  h Are you not of more value than they? 27And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his  i span of life? [7] 28And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you,  j even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you,  k O you of little faith? 31Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For  l the Gentiles seek after all these things, and  m your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33But  n seek first  o the kingdom of God and his righteousness,  p and all these things will be added to you. 34 q “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

So when Jesus directs us to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence. Rather, we pray for it to take over at all points in the personal, social, and political order where it is now excluded: “On earth as it is in heaven.” With this prayer we are invoking it, as in faith we are acting it, into the real world of our daily existence. Within his overarching dominion God has created us and has given each of us, like him, a range of will—beginning from our minds and bodies and extending outward, ultimately to a point not wholly predetermined but open to the measure of our faith. His intent is for us to learn to mesh our kingdom with the kingdoms of others. Love of neighbor, rightly understood, will make this happen. But we can only love adequately by taking as our primary aim the integration of our rule with God’s. That is why love of neighbor is the second, not the first, commandment and why we are told to seek first the kingdom, or rule, of God. Only as we find that kingdom and settle into it can we human beings all reign, or rule, together with God. We will then enjoy individualized “reigns” with neither isolation nor conflict. This is the ideal of human existence for which secular idealism vainly strives. Small wonder that, as Paul says, “Creation eagerly awaits the revealing of God’s children” (Rom. 8:19).

Out of that union [Kingdom of God reign] we discover love as a life power that has the marvelous, many-sided expression spelled out by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. But this beautiful statement by Paul is commonly misunderstood in exactly the same legalistic way as is Jesus' Discourse on the Hill. Love, Paul there tells us, is patient, kind, free of jealousy and arrogance, is not rude or self-seeking, is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs, takes no joy in things that are wrong but instead in what is true. It always protects, always accepts, always hopes, and endures everything. And it never quits (1 Cor. 13:4–8). People usually read this, and are taught to read it, as telling them to be patient, kind, free of jealousy, and so on—just as they read Jesus' Discourse as telling them to not call others fools, not look on a woman to lust, not swear, to go the second mile, and so forth. But Paul is plainly saying—look at his words—that it is love that does these things, not us, and that what we are to do is to “pursue love” (1 Cor. 14:1). As we “catch” love, we then find that these things are after all actually being done by us. These things, these godly actions and behaviors, are the result of dwelling in love. We have become the kind of person who is patient, kind, free of jealousy, and so on. Paul's message is exactly the same as Jesus' message. And no wonder, for as Paul was always the first to say, he learned what he taught from Jesus (Gal. 1:12).

But what do we pray for if we aren’t asking God to tell us exactly what to do? Well, first of all we pray for illumination. We ask God to open our minds so we can understand the Scriptures and apply them to our lives. Don’t forget about this prayer. God can show you amazingly relevant things in His Word if you ask Him to. Second, pray for wisdom. We have not because we ask not. God wants us to make good decisions that will help us be more like Christ and bring Him glory. Third, pray for things that you already know are God’s will. Pray for good motives in your decision making. Pray for an attitude of trust and faith and obedience. Pray for humility and teachability. Pray for His gospel to spread. You know that He wants these things in the world and for your life. Pray for them. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, as Jesus asked us to (Matthew 6:33). And then after you’ve prayed and studied and sought advice, make a decision and don’t hyper-spiritualize it. Do what seems best. Sometimes you won’t have time to pray and read and seek counsel for a month. That’s why the way of wisdom is about more than getting a decisive word about one or two big decisions in life. The way of wisdom is a way of life. And when it’s a way of life, you are freer than you realize. If you are drinking deeply of godliness in the Word and from others and in your prayer life, then you’ll probably make God-honoring decisions. In fact, if you are a person of prayer, full of regular good counsel from others, and steeped in the truth of the Word, you should begin to make many important decisions instinctively, and some of them even quickly. For most Christians, agonizing over decisions is the only sure thing we know to do, the only thing that feels safe and truly spiritual. But sometimes, oftentimes actually, it’s okay to just decide.

Easing Your Worries I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? —MATTHEW 6:25     I don’t know how things are in your world, but I can tell you that in Southern California we live in an age of anxiety. My neighbors and I have it much easier than our parents, but we certainly are much uneasier than our parents were. We seem to be anxious about temporal things, more so than past generations. They never worried about whether they were eating at the new vogue eatery, vacationing at the best island hotel with the largest pool, wearing the most prestigious label, or keeping their abs in shape. I watched the previous generation closely; they wanted a home for their families, a car that ran efficiently, and a job that provided for their basic needs. It seems our main concerns and drives today are physical and earth possessed. A large number of people actually believe that if they have the best food, clothing, education, house, and trainer, they have arrived. What else could one want for a perfect life? Our culture actually places more importance on the body and what we do with it than ever before in modern history. Thus we have created a mind set that causes us as women to be more concerned with life’s accommodations along life’s journey than with our final destination. Many women are going through their lives with a vast vacuum on the inside. In fact, the woman that you might sometimes envy because of her finely dressed family and newly remodeled kitchen is probably spending most of her day anxious and unsatisfied. Maybe that woman is you? This thing called life is more important than food, and the body is more important than what we wear. All the tangible distractions don’t satisfy the soul; they have become cheap substitutes for our spiritual wholeness and well-being. Let Christ help you overcome the anxieties of life. • Stop chasing the temporal things of life. Seek the kingdom of God as it is revealed in Jesus. Cast all your cares on Him. • Take your eyes off yourself and focus them on God first. Much of our anxieties are rooted in our self-centeredness. • Spend most of your prayer time praying for others.

I COULD HAVE reminded the Arab Knesset member of other historical facts once known to many schoolchildren but which have since been forgotten—or distorted by anti-Israel propaganda. The history of the Jewish people spans almost four millennia. The first thousand years or so are covered in the Bible, and are attested to by archaeology and the historical records of other, contemporaneous peoples. As the centuries progress, the mists of time and the myths gradually evaporate and the unfolding events come into sharp historical focus. Reading the Bible from second grade on, I could easily imagine Abraham and Sarah on their long trek from Ur of the Chaldeans to the land of Canaan almost four thousand years ago. Abraham envisions one God, unseen but present everywhere. He buys a burial cave in Hebron and bequeaths the new land to his progeny. The descendants of Abraham’s grandson Jacob are enslaved in Egypt for centuries, until Moses takes them out of bondage. He leads them for forty years in the wilderness to the Promised Land, giving the Children of Israel the Ten Commandments and a moral code that would change the world. The indomitable Joshua conquers the land, wily David establishes his kingdom in Jerusalem, and wise Solomon builds his Temple there, only to have his sons split the realm into two. The northern kingdom, Israel, is destroyed, its ten tribes lost to history. The southern kingdom, Judea, is conquered and Solomon’s Temple is destroyed by the Babylonians, by whose rivers the exiled Judeans weep as they remember Zion. They rejoice when in 537 BCE they are reinstated in their homeland by Cyrus of Persia, who lets them rebuild their destroyed Temple. The Persian rulers are replaced by Alexander the Great, one of whose heirs seeks to eradicate the Jewish religion. This sparks a rebellion led by the brave Maccabees, and the independent Jewish state they establish lasts for eighty years. It is overtaken by the rising power Rome which initially rules through proxies, the most notable of whom is Herod the Great. Herod refurbishes the Jerusalem Temple as one of the great wonders of the ancient world. In its bustling courtyard a Jewish rabbi from the Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth, overturns the tables of the money changers, setting off a chain of events culminating in his eventual crucifixion and the beginning of the Judeo-Christian tradition. When the Jews rebel against Roman rule, Rome destroys Jerusalem and Herod’s Temple in 70 CE. Masada, the last rebel stronghold, falls three years later. Despite the devastation, sixty-two years later the Jews rebel again under the fearless Bar Kokhba, only to be crushed even more brutally. The Roman emperor Hadrian bars the Jews from Jerusalem and renames the country Palestina, after the Grecian Philistines, who have long disappeared.

But the man who owned the vineyard said to one of those workers, ‘Friend, I am being fair to you. You agreed to work for one coin. So take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same pay that I gave you. I can do what I want with my own money. Are you jealous because I am good to those people?’ “So those who are last now will someday be first, and those who are first now will someday be last.” (20:1–16 NCV) “Do you begrudge my generosity?” the landowner is saying. The answer, of course, is yes, they do. They begrudge it quite a bit. Even though it has no impact on them whatsoever, it offends them. We hate it when we are trying so hard to earn something, and then someone else gets the same thing without trying as hard. Think about this for a moment, in real, “today” terms. Someone gives you a backbreaking job, and you’re happy for it, but at the end of the day, when you’re getting paid, the guys who came in with five minutes left get the same amount you just got. Seriously? It’s imbalanced, unfair, maddening . . . and it’s also exactly what Jesus just said the kingdom of God is like. Not only is it maddening; it’s maddening to the “good” people! Common sense says you don’t do this. You don’t pay latecomers who came in a few minutes ago the same amount that you paid the hardworking folks you hired first. Jesus tells this story, knowing full well that the conscientious ones listening would find this hardest to take. And, as a matter of fact, as a conscientious one, I find this hard to take. I’m just being honest. This story does not fit my style. I’m all about people getting what they deserve. Oh, it’s offensive, too, when Jesus turns to a guy who’s being executed next to Him, and tells him, “Today, you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). What did the guy do to deserve that? He did nothing. If you call yourself a Christian, and you want things to be fair, and you want God’s rewards given out only to the deserving and the upstanding and the religious, well, honestly, Jesus has got to be a complete embarrassment to you. In fact, to so many upstanding Christians, He is. He has always been offensive, and remains offensive, to those who seek to achieve “righteousness” through what they do. Always. People who’ve grown up in church (like me) are well acquainted with the idea that Jesus is our “cornerstone.” He’s the solid rock of our faith. Got it. Not controversial. It’s well-known. But what’s not so talked about: That stone, Jesus, causes religious people to stumble. And that rock is offensive to “good” people: So what does all this mean? Those who are not Jews were not trying to make themselves right with God, but they were made right with God because of their faith. The people of Israel tried to follow a law to make themselves right with God. But they did not succeed, because they tried to make themselves right by the things they did instead of trusting in God to make them right. They stumbled over the stone that causes people to stumble. (Rom. 9:30–32 NCV) And then Paul says something a couple verses later that angers “good Christians” to this day: Because they did not know the way that God makes people right with him, they tried to make themselves right in their own way. So they did not accept God’s way of making people right. Christ ended the law so that everyone who believes in him may be right with God. (Rom. 10:3–4 NCV) It’s not subtle, what Paul’s writing here. For anyone who believes in Him, Jesus ended the law as a means to righteousness. Yet so many think they can achieve—even have achieved—some kind of “good Christian” status on the basis of the rule-keeping work they’ve done. They suspect they’ll do good things and God will owe them for it, like payment for a job well done. Paul says, in effect, if you think you should get what you earn, you will . . . and you don’t want that.

For now let me just state that when interacting with a toxic person I have two aims: I want to do the right thing—keep seeking first God’s kingdom—and be the right person—nontoxic in return and acting out of love (whether that leads to confrontation or walking away depends on the situation). I can’t control a toxic person. I can’t change a toxic person. I can’t understand a toxic person. But I can guard my mission and maintain my character. Those are the only two things you can control when you live or work around toxic people.

But it’s how the temple tax is paid that makes the story so delightful—from a shekel coin found in a fish’s mouth! People who followed Jesus always found that there was somehow more than enough. Water turned into wine, loaves and fish multiplied, and money for a tax bill was found in a fish’s mouth. Jesus taught his disciples not to worry about provision. When we seek first the kingdom of God, what we need will be provided.

In everyday life we know that someone who is a true lover is very different from someone who is a pretender or a playboy. We know that true love should not be motivated at all by self- interest. And such is God’s love for us. It is a love that seeks the very best for us; it is sacrificial; it never stops giving. Perhaps the closest we can come to understanding the essence and quality of God’s love for us—though it is still a faint reflection of the reality—is the way in which we love our children. We bring these helpless, fragile little things home from the hospital and we love them. They have not done anything to deserve our love, indeed they are totally incapable of doing anything for us, yet we love them. From the moment we become a parent we know that from now on, life will pretty much revolve around our child and often they will inconvenience us in ways we can only dream of! Yet, we never stop loving them—really loving them. Parents and their children are a model to help us understand the way in which our Heavenly Father God really loves each one of us. As we think about how unconditionally we love our children and begin to grasp how complete and unconditional the Father’s love for us is, we can begin to scratch the surface of His grace and understand a little of the motivation behind God’s unmerited offer of salvation and forgiveness for our sins. Despite a lot of good teaching on the subject in the Church over the years, many Christians are still mystified by grace. They fail to live in the richness of it themselves and they fail to show grace to others. Many are still trapped by a performance-based theology that thinks God’s love must be earned or deserved. They think that if they behave well and perform good works for God then He will love them more. This is so far from the truth! God cannot love us any more nor any less than He does now, and He longs for us to live in the place of grace where we understand that He gives His love to us freely. God’s love and grace are gifts for us to receive. Do we ever deserve them? No! We are totally undeserving, but we are the undeserving who are the apple of His eye. GRACE AND FORGIVENESS The title of this book Grace and Forgiveness is purposefully chosen because the issue of God’s grace is vitally intertwined with the issue of forgiveness. They are not simply two distinct aspects of our spiritual life that we have decided to place together in the same book. When we come into a real understanding of the extent of God’s grace towards us and what that means, we begin to see how vital and necessary it is that we pass that grace and love on to others. Grace becomes an irresistible force in our lives. When properly understood, the “unfairness” and “injustice” of God’s grace towards us is deeply shocking, even offensive to our human understanding, as we will see. But in the same way that God lavishly and extravagantly pours His grace out upon our lives, He is calling us to learn how to show grace to others by forgiving those who truly don’t deserve it. The great discovery of forgiveness is that, through a selfless act, we open ourselves up to a greater outpouring of the blessing of God on our lives. There are two important things that every Christian needs to realize at some point in their journey as a believer, preferably sooner rather than later! The first is that our God is very big and very powerful and there is nothing that He cannot do. The second is that He is very loving and compassionate towards us. The Bible says that “God is love”. This is not a statement about what He does, but about who He is. He is the very embodiment of perfect, flawless love. His heart for us is to see us living our spiritual lives where we are operating with the dynamics of His Kingdom, just as Jesus did. It is a Kingdom of love, filled with faith, aware of the bigness of our God; aware of His willingness to interact with us and do things for us as we act in loving obedience to Him.

The more interested you are in what God says, the less concerned you become about what man thinks.

Are you a single person? Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness as an unmarried man or woman. What does that mean? It means that you allow God to find that right person for you, if you are supposed to be married. It means you don’t rush out and grab someone who might be “available” or fool yourself into thinking you can date a nonbeliever and bring him or her to Christ.

The continual worry is wearing out the life forces. Our Lord desires them to lay aside this yoke of bondage. He invites them to accept His yoke; He says, “My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” He bids them seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and His promise is that all things needful to them for this life shall be added. Worry is blind, and cannot discern the future; but Jesus sees the end from the beginning. In every difficulty He has His way prepared to bring relief. Our heavenly Father has a thousand ways to provide for us, of which we know nothing. Those who accept the one principle of making the service and honor of God supreme will find perplexities vanish, and a plain path before their feet.

First, Nehemiah’s walk with God was saturated with his praying, and praying of the truest and purest kind—namely, the sort of praying that is always seeking to clarify its own vision of who and what God is, and to celebrate his reality in constant adoration, and to rethink in his presence such needs and requests as one is bringing to him, so that the stating of them becomes a specifying of “hallowed be thy name . . . thy will be done . . . for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.

Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” The way of the world is to go about and grab everything in sight. The world makes material possessions – food, clothing, money, houses, cars – its objective. But in this new life, if you make the will of God your objective, God will add these things. That saves a lot of worry if you know that God is the One doing the adding.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Religion prepares man to leave earth; the Kingdom of God empowers man to dominate the earth. Religion wants to escape earth; the Kingdom of God impacts, influences, and changes earth. Religion brings earth to Heaven; the Kingdom brings Heaven to earth. Seek first the Kingdom of God!

When Jesus told us to seek first the Kingdom, it was an invitation into obsession.

So many Christians go through life never making an impact for the Kingdom of God because they’re just pew-warmers. They never pick up their Bibles from Sunday to Sunday. They never feed themselves; they just show up on Sunday morning and wait for someone else to feed them. When life hits them hard, they don’t know how to handle it. They are desperate for God to get them out of a bad situation. I don’t want that for you. Jesus calls us to follow Him and be His disciples. A disciple is a learner or fully-devoted follower.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33).

The better way is the biblical way: Seek first the kingdom of God, and then trust that He will take care of our needs, even before we know what they are and where we’re going.

If I take care of God's business; for some reasons I have realized He takes care of my business too. It's a principle of divine reciprocity, seek first the Kingdom!

There were five of these commandments. The First Commandment (Matthew v, 21-6) was that man must not only refrain from killing, he must not become angry with his brother, must not consider anyone to be raca, of no consequence, and if he should quarrel he must first be reconciled before bringing a gift to God, that is before praying. The Second Commandment (Matthew v, 27-32) was that man must not only refrain from adultery, he must avoid lusting after womanly beauty, and one joined to a woman he never be unfaithful to her. The Third Commandment (Matthew v, 33-7) was that man must swear no oaths. The Fourth Commandment (Matthew v, 38-42) was that man must not only refrain from taking an eye for an eye, but must turn the other cheek when smitten on one, must forgive injuries and humbly bear them and never refuse people that which they desire of him. The Fifth Commandment (Matthew v, 43-8) was that man must not only refrain from hating his enemies, and waging war against them, but must love, help and serve them. Nekhlyudov fixed his gaze on the light coming from the burning lamp, and his heart stopped. Recalling all the ugliness of our lives, he started to imagine what this life could be like if only people were educated in the principles, and his soul was filled with the kind of rapture he had not known for a very long time. It was as if he had suddenly found peace and freedom after a long period of anguish and pain. He did not sleep that night, and, as so often happens with many, many people reading the Gospels for the first time, as he read he came to a full understanding of words he had heard read many times before without taking in what they said. All that was revealed to him in that book as vital, important and joyful he drank in like a sponge soaking up water. And all that he read seemed familiar, seemed to confirm and full acknowledge things he had known for a very long time without accepting or believing them. But now he accepted and believed. But more that that: as well as accepting and believing that by obeying these commandments people will attain the highest of all possible blessings, he now accepted and believed that obeying these commandments is all that a person has to do, the only thing makes sense in human life, and that any departure from this is a mistake leading to instant retribution. This emerged from the teaching as a whole but with particular strength and clarity from the parable of the vineyard. The workers in the vineyard had come to imagine that the garden where they had been sent to work for the master was their own property, and that everything in it had been put there for their benefit, and all they had to do was to enjoy life in the garden, forget all about the master and put to death anybody who reminded them of the master and their duty towards him. ‘This is just what we are doing,’ thought Nekhlyudov, ‘living in the absurd conviction that we are masters of our own lives, and that life is given to us purely for our enjoyment. Yet this is patently absurd. Surely, if we have been sent here it must be at someone’s behest and for a purpose. But we have decided that we live only for our gratification, and naturally life turns sour on us, as it turns sour on a worker who fails to follow his master’s will. And the will of the master is expressed in these commandments. People only have to obey these commandments and the kingdom of God will be established on earth, and the people will receive the highest of all possible blessings. ‘See ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and the all the rest shall be added on to you.’ And although we are seeking ‘all the rest’, we obviously cannot find it. ‘So this is what my life is all about. As one part comes to an end, another begins.

Our transposal of these priorities-seeking first "all these things" that Jesus promised would be given to us after we'd sought His kingdom-has drained the Christian message of its grandeur. Too many believers have rationalized this, Moore said, by avowing that God is most glorified when Christians hold the commanding heights of society. But this is exactly backward. 'A Christian witness is always best when not from a position of power as defined by the outside world,' Moore said. He quoted the essayist Wendell Berry: 'If change is to come, it will have to come from the margins.

So many Christians go through life never making an impact for the Kingdom of God because they’re just pew-warmers. They never pick up their Bibles from Sunday to Sunday. They never feed themselves; they just show up on Sunday morning and wait for someone else to feed them.

Furthermore, as letters emerging from an ancient Greco-Roman context, the Epistles presume certain cultural norms, like patriarchy, slavery, and patronage, and reflect the unique concerns of a minority religious sect in an imperial context. They expect women to wear head coverings (1 Corinthians 11:6), men to have short hair (11:14), and everyone to “greet one another with a holy kiss” (16:20). They wrestle with the age-old question of how to live as citizens of the kingdom of God in the shadow of the empire, as well as specific questions about whether Christians should buy discounted meat after it has been sacrificed to Roman gods. As a result, many passages carry a timeless, universal quality—“God is love” (1 John 4:16), while others reflect the unique challenges confronting followers of Jesus in the first century—“Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience” (1 Corinthians 10:25). As Pastor Adam Hamilton explained, “When you read one of Paul’s letters, or any other New Testament letter, you are reading someone else’s mail. Christians often forget this. They read Paul’s letters as though he wrote just for them. This works fine most of the time; Paul’s instructions, his theological reflections and his practical concerns are amazingly timeless. But they become most meaningful, and we are least likely to misapply their teaching, when we seek to understand why he may have written this or that to a given church.

Then it is that he must remind us again, with terrible clarity, that he meant exactly what he said in those seemingly simple words of the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not be anxious about what you shall eat, or what you shall wear, or where you shall sleep, but seek first the kingdom of God and his justice.

Somehow, then, God must contrive to break through those routines of ours and remind us once again, like Israel, that we are ultimately dependent only upon him, that he has made us and destined us for life with him through all eternity, that the things of this world and this world itself are not our lasting city, that his we are and that we must look to him and turn to him in everything. Then it is, perhaps, that he must allow our whole world to be turned upside down in order to remind us it is not our permanent abode or final destiny, to bring us to our senses and restore our sense of values, to turn our thoughts once more to him—even if at first our thoughts are questioning and full of reproaches. Then it is that he must remind us again, with terrible clarity, that he meant exactly what he said in those seemingly simple words of the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not be anxious about what you shall eat, or what you shall wear, or where you shall sleep, but seek first the kingdom of God and his justice.

The truth is when it comes to your life, you are not at war with ambition; you are in a war for ambition—godly ambition. Without godly ambition you will collapse back into a cocoon of self. Without godly ambition your vision will be reduced to your own wants and needs. You won’t recognize it, but instead of seeking first the kingdom of God, you will seek the kingdom of the American dream.

What were any of us, really, in the face of the system around us, with all its organs of propaganda and powers of persecution? Yet, in God’s providence, here we were. This was the place he had chosen for us, the situation and circumstances in which he had placed us. One thing we could do and do daily: we could seek first the kingdom of God and his justice—first of all in our own lives, and then in the lives of those around us. From the time of the apostles—twelve simple men, alone and afraid, who had received the commission to go forth into the whole world to preach the good news of the kingdom—there has been no other way for the spreading of the kingdom than by the acts and the lives of individual Christians striving each day to fulfill the will of God.

Forgive Us, Father Father, why is the thing we need the most, the thing we do the least? Why are most of us so busy we don’t have time? You must have many frustrated days when Your eyes roam to and fro throughout the earth in search of someone whose heart is completely Yours. You must weep often when You seek for a man or woman to stand in the gap to fill the breech and find no one. Your heart must ache at times for us, Your people, to rise up and be what You’ve called us to be. We humble ourselves before Your throne and ask You to forgive us for our lack of prayer. And forgive us as leaders, Lord, who have not told Your people the truth. Forgive us as a church—the Body of Christ—for allowing evil to rule in this land when You have more than enough power in our wombs to change it. Forgive us, for it is not Your fault that we have a generation marked X. It is not Your will that we kill the next generation before it takes its first breath. It is not Your plan that we still have not overcome the principality of hatred that divides this land. Forgive us, Lord. Cleanse us now and break the curses we have allowed to rule over us. Forgive us and cleanse us from the sin of apathy, complacency, ignorance and unbelief. Wash us with the water of Your Word. Break off of us this lethargic prayerlessness, which we justify a thousand different ways. It really boils down to disobedience, unbelief and sin. Father, please forgive us and deliver us. Set us free from being hearers of the Word only, and not doers. Give us homes and churches that are founded on the rock of obedience to Your Word. Rise up in Your people with the stubborn tenacity that Jesus had, that the Early Church walked in. Cause us to cast off everything that would oppose Your Spirit, and move us into a realm that pays a price and lays hold of the kingdom of God. Fill us with Your Spirit. Baptize us in fire. Let there be an impartation of the Spirit of grace and supplication. Let there be an anointing that comes from Your throne to hungry people who are tired of status quo, of mediocrity, of death and destruction. We are tired of it, God. We are tired of being defeated by a defeated enemy. We are tired of being held back from our destiny, both individually and as a nation. We are tired of lack and disease. We are tired of sin. We are hungry for something—the God of the Bible!

Seeking first the kingdom of God and finding reliable people are such urgent tasks that we may have to employ spiritual triage. Knowing that the time is short and our time and energy are limited, we seek to focus on the most fertile fields.

could hardly mean that one must never assert the interests of one’s own well-being, health, survival, and other such matters that would come from authentic love of self as God’s creation and God’s child. It is rather the conceited selfishness that is the opposite of divine love, which seeks not its own advantage but the good of others without return. This self-sacrificing love is the kind of ideal kingdom living that Jesus proposed. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:34–

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Mat 6:33***

God recognizes and respects our independent will and the choices all of us make. He does not force us to seek His Love, but waits until we, by our own experience, learn that what we once thought was sufficient for our happiness is not sufficient. Realizing this insufficiency, we become dissatisfied, and with such dissatisfaction comes the wish and yearning to learn about the great unknown, which causes us to feel a dependence upon a source of happiness and love not coming from within our own self. This is the scary thing for most people on the spiritual path today, which teaches self-reliance, not God Reliance. The great advantage in striving to enter the Divine Love Spheres and Divine Heavens is that you not only gain your soul’s development, which is eternal and permanent, but also the development of your mind and moral nature. And so you understand: ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all other things shall be added unto you.

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. – Matthew 6:33

MORE FROM GOD’S WORD I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, love the Lord your God, obey Him, and remain faithful to Him. For He is your life, and He will prolong your life in the land the Lord swore to give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Deuteronomy 30:19-20 HCSB Ignorant zeal is worthless; haste makes waste. Proverbs 19:2 MSG But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself…. Daniel 1:8 KJV But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Matthew 6:33 HCSB Above all and before all, do this: Get Wisdom! Write this at the top of your list: Get Understanding! Proverbs 4:7 MSG The wise people will shine like the brightness of the sky. Those who teach others to live right will shine like stars forever and ever. Daniel 12:3 NCV SHADES OF GRACE The Gospel is not so much a demand as it is an offer, an offer of new life to man by the grace of God. E. Stanley Jones A PRAYER FOR TODAY Dear Lord, today I will focus my thoughts on Your will for my life. I will strive to make decisions that are pleasing to You, and I will strive to follow in the footsteps of Your Son. Amen

Don’t continue to straddle the fence. Commit your total effort and energy to Christ. The wholeheartedly committed Christian is the truly happy Christian. In Philippians 1:21 we read: “To me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” When we lose sight of who God is and forget to give Him honor, anxiety sets into our lives and day-to-day living doesn’t make sense. When we make our goal the pursuit of things and we take our eyes off Jesus, we invariably will be disappointed in our journeys. God does not fail us. He gives us moderation and balance and direction and purpose. A full life. As I’ve mentioned, one of our family’s favorite verses is Matthew 6:33: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.” Yes, this is the ultimate anxiety breaker—seek first His kingdom. Bob and I use this as our test for doing anything in life. When we face a decision, we ask ourselves if we are truly seeking His kingdom first, or are we seeking to build our vision of success and value? In John 16:33 we read: “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (NASB). God has promised us peace, but many of us choose anxiety instead. We will never be the women God wants us to be until we heed His call—“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Prayer: Father God, take my eyes off the things of the world. I realize that life is more than things. I know that they don’t give my life purpose and meaning. I want to focus on serving You all of my existing days. Give me the power and conviction to follow Your ways. Amen.   Action: Analyze what is making you anxious. What are you going to do about it? Physically write out on a piece of paper what these anxieties are and what you will do to change each into peace. Today’s Wisdom: Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centered in anything short of God and His will for us. —BILLY GRAHAM

Seek and you shall find” does not refer to anything else: long life, conquest of earthly enemies, freedom from pain, disease, death, betrayal, weakness, and so on. But it does refer to God and to that which God is: “God is agapē.” That is why all who seek it find it. De Caussade says: “If you search for this kingdom where God alone rules, you can be quite sure you will find it” (p. 112).

To seek first the kingdom of God is not to forfeit divine direction

Seek First God’s Kingdom And His Righteousness

If you seek first God's Kingdom, shall find the key to knowledge.

Seek first God’s kingdom and what God wants. Then all your other needs will be met as well. So don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have its own worries. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:33–34).

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.’” For

It is a peculiar modern superstition that to achieve success in any area we have to make that area the be all and end all of our lives—and live and breathe for that alone. (Vince Lombardi: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”) Down that way lies the path to idolatry, obsession, restlessness, cut-throat rivalry, and a life marked by either arrogance or bitter regrets. If our best strivings are to remain truly human, they need a goal and a standard outside us to challenge us always to aim higher, but also to bring in fresh air and keep life in perspective. Our goals, tasks and missions are never themselves God. If we try to make them so, they will be idols. Only God is God, and therefore such a goal and standard above all our endeavors. Again, we are to “seek first His kingdom . . . and all these things will be added to you.”20

Where in the context might we look for the reward that the Father encourages us to seek? I think a reliable guide would be the prayer that Jesus just taught us to pray in Matthew 6:9–13. It begins with three main longings that we are to hope for from God. First, that God’s name be hallowed or revered; second, that God’s kingdom come; and third, that his will be done on earth the way it’s done in heaven.

By the one who had revolted in heaven the kingdoms of this world were offered Christ, to buy His homage to the principles of evil; but He would not be bought; He had come to establish a kingdom of righteousness, and He would not abandon His purpose. With the same temptation Satan approaches men, and here he has better success than with Christ. To men he offers the kingdom of this world on condition that they will acknowledge his supremacy. He requires that they sacrifice integrity, disregard conscience, indulge selfishness. Christ bids them seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; but Satan walks by their side and says: Whatever may be true in regard to life eternal, in order to make a success in this world you must serve me. I hold your welfare in my hands. I can give you riches, pleasures, honor, and happiness. Hearken to my counsel. Do not allow yourselves to be carried away with whimsical notions of honesty or self-sacrifice. I will prepare the way before you. Thus multitudes are deceived. They consent to live for the service of self, and Satan is satisfied. While he allures them with the hope of worldly dominion, he gains dominion over the soul. But he offers that which is not his to bestow, and which is soon to be wrested from him. In return he beguiles them of their title to the inheritance of the sons of God.

There are many whose hearts are aching under a load of care because they seek to reach the world's standard. They have chosen its service, accepted its perplexities, adopted its customs. Thus their character is marred, and their life made a weariness. In order to gratify ambition and worldly desires, they wound the conscience, and bring upon themselves an additional burden of remorse. The continual worry is wearing out the life forces. Our Lord desires them to lay aside this yoke of bondage. He invites them to accept His yoke; He says, "My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." He bids them seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and His promise is that all things needful to them for this life shall be added. Worry is blind, and cannot discern the future; but Jesus sees the end from the beginning. In every difficulty He has His way prepared to bring relief. Our heavenly Father has a thousand ways to provide for us, of which we know nothing. Those who accept the one principle of making the service and honor of God supreme will find perplexities vanish, and a plain path before their feet.

Jesus said in John 6:27, “Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life.” Yet many of us continue to labor to the point of exhaustion for that which does not satisfy. Are you so focused on your work that you are neglecting relationships? Have accomplishments, money, or position become an idol to you? Are you sacrificing health and spiritual growth for success? Are you seeking God and His kingdom first, or do promotions, pay raises, and accolades top your list? Ask God to help you honestly evaluate your work ethic today.

The rule is, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these (other) things shall be added unto you.’ If you put your emphasis on these ‘other things’ instead of on ‘seeking first the kingdom of God’ you are doomed to failure, and you are doing despite to the message that has been committed to you. No

Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.