The most popular post we have ever put out on our Facebook page has the word’s, “Seek First the Kingdom of God.” These words rise above the evening glow of a beautiful Arizona landscape.  The post received thousands of Amens of agreement, a few dismissals as foolishness, and a question. Just what is seeking the Kingdom of God?

Jesus said these words towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Though there is no disagreement among followers of Jesus Christ that there is a Kingdom of God, there is some debate as to what specifically Jesus is referring to here. But for our purposes, we will define the Kingdom of God as the things God cares about, the presence and rule of God in the now of this word, and God’s eternal rule in heaven.

It is easy to give agreement about the importance of seeking this Kingdom.  The real seeking part, however, may be a bit more difficult for us since this seeking requires us to depart from our self-made path to take a biblical path in our life direction. A lot of us in truth are just causally looking for the Kingdom in our spare time as we pursue our own self-interest. If it happens that our interests bump into God’s path, sort of by accident, well that is all good. But mostly we tend to be distracted and deeply focused on our problems, our entertainment, our failures, our family, our friends, our hobbies, our food, and our whatever.

That is why the Christian life requires faith. Our lives require an active trust. Faith that this kingdom of God is the kingdom that matters, and we are not missing out when we may be taking attention away from ourselves. We need to have faith that if we seek him, if we integrate all that we have and do during our normal ordinary hours with Jesus, it is ultimately what matters. Our God will not give us a rock as a birthday gift when our enemy all day long is trying to stream into our lives that God is not faithful, and we as fellow Christians are mere pretenders of goodness and hypocrites worthy of dismissal on all serious matters.

Each day most of us get to wake up and see some version of the glory of creation proclaimed through nature. We have several Bibles possibly spread around our house. We drive to work, school, and sit at our computer with hundreds of radio shows and podcasts proclaiming some aspect of the Jesus life available to us. This seeking the kingdom first is trusting that these things of God are the things of worth and intricately weave them into our lives.

In some ways, seeking is always asking the question of what we are desiring. Our we desiring God as shown to us in the Bible?  Or alternatively, do we seek our own vision of existence and hope it bumps into God’s vision, glad the almighty decided to be in agreement with us. In seeking the Kingdom, we must ask what are we desiring when we turn on the television? What are we desiring when we do something at work? What are we desiring when we spend time with our family? What are we desiring when we do a kind act?  Are we desiring to see God’s presence in the now in front of us, in the ordinary days of life, and preparing for his future rule in eternity?   If the answer is more and more yes, then I believe we are seeking first the kingdom of God.

Doug

The words of British poet Robert Abrahams say it well, “For some men die by shrapnel, And some go down in flames, But most men perish inch by inch, In play at little games.”  Our goal is to identify the little games and put a stop to them and put the right weight on the right things.