Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Psalms 9-11
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 6:31-34
Jesus: So do not consume yourselves with questions: What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? Outsiders make themselves frantic over such questions; they don’t realize that your heavenly Father knows exactly what you need. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all these things will be given to you too. So do not worry about tomorrow. Let tomorrow worry about itself. Living faithfully is a large enough task for today.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
What are you chasing? Is your career at the top of your list? Are you wanting a better car or a bigger house? Are you trying to prepare for retirement? Are you looking for a spouse? How about love from your kids? Are you chasing a relationship that seems to elude you? What are you spending your energy on? If someone looked at your calendar or better yet your checkbook, what would they think you are chasing?
Jesus told us not to consume ourselves with trivial questions that seem to consume the world today. All those questions that have to do with material things. He mentions questions of what will you eat or drink or wear, but it goes much further than that. These are basic necessities of life God knows every person must have for survival, yet He says don’t every worry about these. So why should we spend so much energy on things that are so much less meaningful than food, water, clothing, and shelter? Why should we listen to the world and chase the baubles society proclaims important when all of them are fleeting?
Jesus tells us to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all the other things will come into place. Living faithfully is a large enough task. Just do that and you’ll do well. It takes a moment to begin the chase for God’s kingdom. A decision to live for Him. Yet it also takes a lifetime to chase after God’s kingdom. He changes us continually. He never leaves us in the state we are in. He always makes us better, more like Him as we delve into His word and learn more of Him with each conversation we have with Him.
So the question for us is, “What does it mean to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness?”
God doesn’t play hide-n-seek with us. He wants to be found. He wants a relationship with us. I think that’s the first thing we need to remember about God. But He also expects us to put some effort into our relationship with Him. He doesn’t want our relationship to be one-sided and until we accept His forgiving grace and let Him become Lord of our lives (which means continual obedience to His will), our relationship is one-sided. He puts out all the effort.
We all have a God-sized hole in us that needs filling. We try to fill it with all those things Jesus doesn’t talk about but implies in His sermon. Money. Houses. Careers. Things. Sometimes even good things like family and friends. But when they take the place of God. When they become more important than seeking after God and knowing Him, we’ve lost the battle. We don’t have to lose the war if we will come back to Him and let Him take the throne of our life, but we’ve lost those battles.
God wants first place. In fact, God wants more than first place. He wants to be the only place with nothing else coming in at even distant second. When we do that with Him, He says He will take care of all those other things. They come along with the journey if we seek God first.
How do we find Him? A good place to start is in the scriptures. It’s His word to us. It’s the written record of how He wants us to live and act and think. Pick your favorite translation. As long as the translation is true to the original manuscripts, it really doesn’t matter much which translation you choose. That’s one of the beauties about what God has done for us. As I’ve read and explored and used various translations over the last forty years of my diligent search for God (before that I wasn’t diligently searching for Him, I was just stumbling along with what others would tell me), I’ve found that every one of those translations talk the same way about what’s important to get me to heaven. Every one of them have the same formula for pleasing God. Every single one tell me that Jesus is the Son of God, born of a virgin, died on a cross for my sins and the sins of the world, rose from the tomb on the third day, sits at the right hand of the Father interceding on my behalf for all those who believe in Him for salvation. Every one of those translations tell me that Jesus will return again and all humankind will face a final judgment based first on whether Jesus is Lord of our life. Every one of them tells me that salvation comes through faith in Jesus alone. But also that faith with the subsequent demonstration of that faith by doing good works for others is not really faith, but just words.
So start with His word. Read it. Meditate on it. Let it soak into your brain. You’ll find God there if you desire to find Him. Then confess that He is God and you are not. Confess that you need His forgiveness for the wrongs you have committed against Him as laid out in His instruction book to us. Then let Him become the Director of your life. You’ll find Him. He will impart His righteousness on you. He will begin to transform you by the renewing of your mind. He will make you over again until those around you before you gave yourself to Him will barely recognize you because of your changed behavior, attitudes, demeanor, love for God and others.
Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. It’s a challenge that will take you the rest of your life to complete no matter how old or how young you are today. But begin today if you haven’t started on that treasure hunt. It is so worth the effort, you won’t understand why you waited so long to start!
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