Today’s verse is from Matthew 6:33 which says:
But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Jesus is preaching in this passage about anxiety and worry. Like any good parent, God does not want us to worry and we are told here that if we seek His Kingdom first, everything we need will be provided to us. In fact, in the prior verse it says our Heavenly Father already knows what we need.
And when I think about seeking first the Kingdom of God, the first thing that comes to my mind is to start with love. When we love God by praying, meditating on His Word, and loving to our neighbors, we are seeking the Kingdom of God.
As with most of our lessons, it sounds simple on the surface but is often difficult to put it into practice. As I’m writing this in mid-2021, one of the biggest challenges to seeking first the Kingdom of God is the extreme disunity in our society. It seems like every news outlet focuses more on identity politics than on the actual news of the day. And it goes way beyond the news. We see many schools, businesses, and places of worship actively participating in the victim/perpetrator dialogue.
The point of this post is definitely not to get political but when politics materially interferes with our ability to love our neighbor, then it needs to be addressed directly. God did not put us here to fight each other but instead to love each other and grow in unity, just like any parent would wish for their children. God hates disunity and wants us to grow closer with everyone around us.
So what is the answer? Many times we think of these challenges in binary terms – for example, in this case, we might think that we need to either ignore it or fight back but I would suggest that neither of those is the necessarily the right answer. I believe the answer is to refuse to play the game and choose a third option which starts with love.
If someone brings up a heated political topic, maybe consider saying something like “All I know is that God wants us to love each other and I personally haven’t experienced discussions about [that topic] drawing people closer.” That’s different than ignoring it because you are acknowledging the toxic nature of the topic and bringing God into the discussion.
That may not be effective in every situation but the broader point we can take away from today’s lesson is that we can more effectively seek the Kingdom of God when we are not focused on identity politics or other distractions of the day.
Questions:
- When you hear the words, “seek first the Kingdom of God”, what does that mean to you?
- Do you believe that if we seek first the Kingdom of God that we’ll have less stress and worry in our lives? If so, why?
- Do you think the “third option” mentioned above would be an effective approach? Why or why not?
- What other strategies can you think of to help us focus more on seeking first the Kingdom of God?
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