Seeking Him First

30 "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 "Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' 32 "For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Another version says it this way:

30-33"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
34"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

I heard a good quote once, it said, “worry is not only irrelevant, it is irreverent.”

Max Lucado puts it this way:

40% never happens
30% regard unchangeable deeds of the past
12% focus on the opinions of others that cannot be controlled
10% focus on health issues that only worsen the more you think about them, like acne.
8% concern real problems that we can influence.

Now let’s move onto the topic at hand. Jesus taught that life was actuality pretty simple. Everything comes to one thing. We are looking for the Kingdom of God. Seeking the Kingdom of God means seeking God. Everything falls into its appropriate place and priority

We are by no means as Christians to exhibit perfect lives but we are to strive for them. Remember Job chapter 1 where 21 He said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD." 22 Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.

But that is only because Job sought God First!!!!!!!!

8 The LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered[Lit set your heart to ] My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing[Or revering ] God and turning away from evil."

It continues in Chapter 2:

3 The LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered[Lit set your heart to ] My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man fearing[Or revering ] God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him to ruin[Lit swallow him up ] him without cause."

Many of us here today ask why when going through trials and troubles why we feel so alone. Part of it is because we don’t seek God first. You see how Job had positioned himself before Satan’s attacks. Matthew is commanding the same things from us in his letter.

Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and everything else will fall into place.

But notice Matthew says seek His Kingdom first, which is saying seek God first, not His hand, not what He can do for you, Seek HIM.

Seek God first and everything else will take care of its self. This is not to say that we are to just wake up and pray and then do nothing. We are to do all that God has commanded us to do. We are to seek Him and then wait upon His leadership and guidance.

Revive

This is going to be short as it is almost 1 in the morning. I keep wondering why it is that we settle for a life that isn’t ours? I mean if God promised us life to the fullest are we expecting it? It seems to me that unfortunately we have settled for the short answer of we will obtain that life once we die, but I can’t find anywhere in the bible where it says that. As I study I see where we are called to suffer. But when Peter says that he follows it up with the fact that if we are suffering for Christ then we will rejoice, be blessed, and be purified. These are the things that happen just before silver and gold obtain their beauty. We must endure some suffering to be purified so that we can handle what God is leading us to do, but we don’t wait for that. We endure some suffering and then just throw up our hands and give up. We have to fight for that life that is promised to us, and honestly it really isn’t a fight as Michael (the archangel that is) has already won the fight for us. We just have to claim what is rightfully ours. On Sunday’s I have been waking up early and praying for other pastors and their churches and then walking over to our church and praying over the Sunday School classes and the sanctuary for our service. Yea, sure I want to sleep in who doesn’t, but what God has been showing me is far greater than that extra hour of rest. Our church is growing and I not only have a peace within God, but energy and excitement that can only come from the Almighty. And He is just that, the Almighty.