Seek first the kingdom of God
and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. —Matthew
6:33
“Even the most
spiritually-minded of us argue the exact opposite, saying, “But I must live; I
must make a certain amount of money; I must be clothed; I must be fed.” The
great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God but how we are going to
take care of ourselves to live. Jesus reversed the order by telling us to get
the right relationship with God first, maintaining it as the primary concern of
our lives, and never to place our concern on taking care of the other things of
life. “…do not worry about your life…” (Matthew 6:25). Our Lord pointed out
that from His standpoint it is absolutely unreasonable for us to be anxious,
worrying about how we will live. Jesus did not say that the person who takes no
thought for anything in his life is blessed— no, that person is a fool. But
Jesus did teach that His disciple must make his relationship with God the
dominating focus of his life, and to be cautiously carefree about everything
else in comparison to that. […] It is one of the most difficult, yet critical,
disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into
absolute harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.” CHAMBERS
What
is worse than that is when we conclude that God will reward us with “all these
things” if we will devote ourselves to Him.
Not realizing that (Matthew 6:24)
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other,
or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both
God and money.” That we are really
devoted to “all these things” and merely want to use God to get them. Sound harsh?
The truth often does. The truth
always confronts the lie.
The point is, put your full trust in God and not in the things
of this world. (1 John 2:15-16) “Do
not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love
for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the
flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father
but from the world.” We spend a disproportionate
amount of time “scrambling” after “stuff” which in the end is nothing more than
“fluff”. We use the “all these things”
to find comfort and confidence. When,
as His children, our comfort and confidence are to be in the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit
and the Word. The problem we have is
that even if we acknowledge the truth, we don’t have the will to get
there. That my friend is where faith
comes in. And just like the man said to Jesus (Mark
9:22-24) “…. if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus
said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I
believe; help my unbelief!”” Let that be
your cry to the Lord. Lord I believe but
I want to believe more. I want to trust
in You and not in myself. I want to stop
craving comfort in what I have and crave to be closer to the One who has
me. As with all things to do with our
new life, it starts in the heart. CHARLEY
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