Matthew 6:33 “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”.
Our theme this month is God first, giving God the pride of place to be the first, seeking God first, and doing the things of God because if we can get our priorities right, I believe that it will redefine the rest of the year for every one of us.
God is a God of priorities and I believe that God wants us to be in no doubt as to what is important to Him, the bible makes it clear to us what are the primary responsibilities that He expects from us,
Two priorities He gave to us as His children and we can face those priorities, and deal with what God said we should deal with first, most of the time, it will save us from a lot of problems, if we look at Matthew 6:33
The Lord said clearly what His priorities for man are, you see a lot of the time daily we run around chasing a lot of things, so everyone is busy but God is saying there are only two things you need to be bothered about, they are in Matthew 6:33 and they are:
But seek ye first the “kingdom of God and His righteousness”, what you need to do is to seek the kingdom of God and to seek His righteousness.
And He says to us that if we can do those two things, everything else will be given to us, that’s all the things we are running about to get, all the stuff we are spending 80-90% of our time to pursue, they will all be added to us, so get His priorities right.
If you look at the instructions for seeking the kingdom of God first, you may want to ask: What does it mean to seek the kingdom of God? What is the kingdom of God?
The kingdom is the government of God, the order of the highest God, so when you want to seek the kingdom of God on earth, it means you should seek the influence of God’s kingdom in heaven here on earth.
I know sometimes we say: “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; what it means is let the influence of heaven be seen manifest here on earth.
The influence of the Government of Heaven must be sought in your job, your business, your career
Let the influence of God permeate whatever you do, seek that the influence of God’s kingdom be made manifest
Secondly, seek His righteousness, so what does it mean, being righteous means being in right standing with authority.
So if you’re looking for the meaning of the statement: “and His righteousness”, it means seek that the influence of God’s kingdom will be established here on earth and seek to be in right standing with God of heaven
So God is looking for two things; establish His kingdom here on earth, let the influence of His kingdom be established wherever you are, and make sure you are in the right standing with God
Essentially this is what the scripture is asking us to do and God tells us that if we do those things, everything else we are looking for will be added
Psalm 23:6 is quite popular as it is often said at the end of nearly every believers’ meeting, it says Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
What does that mean? It means as long as you do those things that are required of you, that is, been in right standing with God, then surely goodness and mercy shall follow you.
As against the plan of God for our lives, we often pursue the things that should be following us naturally and leave behind that which we are supposed to pursue (seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness)
So rather than making out time to praise and worship God, many choose to do their businesses or pursue after money and other things of life instead.
Jesus Christ was so interested in the kingdom that in Matthew 16:19, while speaking with Peter and some other disciples, He told them that He will give to them the keys of the kingdom, authority and power, needed in the kingdom, so that the disciples will see that if they professed the kingdom of God, they will see the reality of what Christ talked about in His teaching
Jesus told His disciples, to go and preach the kingdom and then Christ told a number of parables about the kingdom, one of which is recorded in Matthew 13:11, the whole of Matthew 13 speaks about the kingdom of heaven, at a point His disciples asked Christ; “why is it that you are telling us parables about the kingdom of God”?
Then in verse 11, Jesus answered and said: Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but unto them, that is, some of the people out there it is not given, for whoever has, to him shall be given more, he shall have abundance but whosoever has not, from him shall be taken away even that which he has, “therefore I speak to you in parables so that these ones, seeing they will not see and hearing, they will not hear but blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear, for verily I say unto you for many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which you see and have not seen them, and to hear those things which you hear but have not heard them
So Christ was basically saying to them that the reason He was speaking to them in parables is because He was releasing mysteries of the kingdom but because it is not given to the others to know, those who have interest and are ready to follow God, even more knowledge and mystery will be revealed unto them, but to those who are not interested, even the things they think they have will be taken away from them.
Christ gave the parable of the Sower and identified four types of soil that the Sower sowed seed on, the truth is whenever we gather in God’s presence, there are different kinds of people, some are like the seeds that dropped on the wayside, as the Preacher is preaching, the message is not really entering into their hearts, rather they are busy checking on time, to see when the service will end, some even go as far as pressing their phones while the service is going on, they hear the Word of God but it doesn’t have an impact on their lives.
The second category is the Stony ground, people in this category, receive the Word of God, they agree that the preacher is speaking well, but the moment they leave church premises, they decide not to do the things they ought to do, such people often say we will do what pastor said we should do much later, it is because the seed of God’s Word didn’t take root in their heart.
The third set of people also hear the Word of God, accepts it, and begins practicing the Word of God but when the challenges of life come their way, and the solution to their issues seem not to be coming quickly, they choose to put aside the Word of God and follow their way.
But the last category which is the good soil, when the Word of God is been preached, they accept it wholeheartedly, mix the Word with faith in their heart, and they bring forth lots of fruits (results) from practicing the Word of God.
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God bless you!
