“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be provided for you.”
Jesus Christ (Matthew 6:33 HCSB)
In reflecting on these words, words coming out of the mouth of Jesus making it unwise for us to ignore them, I find it important to first understand—at least to some fundamental extent—what he meant by both “the kingdom of God” and “His righteousness.” For if these two things are of such importance that we are to grant them a higher priority in our lives than the pursuit of food, clothing and shelter, we ought to have a clear sense of what they are.
God’s Righteous Kingdom
While the kingdom of God, no doubt, encompasses more than what I offer here, it is yet a place where God is acknowledged as who He is. His will holds sway, gladly accepted by the inhabitants of the kingdom as being wise, good, and preferable to their own. That God’s will is preferable stems from the settled opinion of the kingdom’s inhabitants that God’s righteousness, His love-filled kindness and goodness, is at all times present and perfect.
If what I suggest is at least fundamentally accurate, then to seek “the kingdom of God and His righteousness” is to be searching after, on a continual basis and as a higher priority than the pursuit of material things, that non-material, spiritual, life-imparting and essential treasure that is the fruit of a rich relationship with the living God, and the defining difference between mere existence and real life.
Jesus, the Kingdom’s Entrance
You may well wonder, how is this to be done? What form does the seeking take? To which I give the only possible answer—follow Jesus!
My reply isn’t meant to be facetious. Jesus commands us to seek these things and, in the gospel record, claims to know what he’s talking about. He says that he and the Father are One and that his appearing on earth brings the kingdom of God near to everyone. After all, Jesus is both the King and the human embodiment of the righteousness of God. To seek God’s kingdom and righteousness is to follow hard after Jesus, learning from him and doing what he says. For it is in the doing that the reward of understanding comes.
The re-ordering of our lives to reflect God’s priorities is to agree to turn our own world upside down! Jesus knows this and positions the admonishment so that it is sandwiched in the midst of his addressing our human propensity to be anxious about our physical welfare, often to the extent of making money our paramount pursuit. Jesus strips away any pretense of a pragmatic hiding place by saying that if we have our priorities in order our material needs will be provided for as well.
Bold words! So grand a promise that our hearts long to plumb the depths of its truth! We want to experience the unfettered, explosive joy of fellowship with, and worship of, the God who so loves us as to set us free from self-imposed drudgery and into the fullness of what he has called us to become, and in the becoming, do.
With burning hearts we desire to be conformed to the likeness of Jesus Christ and to be found faithful stewards of that expression of calling that he has entrusted to us. To know him and love him with the same wild abandonment of love that fueled his own willingness to come and save us from our sins.
Michael
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