seek 1st

Matthew 6:33

(32b)...your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. (NLT)

33 But first and most importantly seek (aim at, strive after) His kingdom and His righteousness [His way of doing and being right—the attitude and character of God], and all these things will be given to you also. (Amplified)

What you should want most is God’s kingdom and doing what he wants you to do.

Then he will give you all these other things you need. (ERV)

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,

and all these things will be added to you. (ESV)

Set your heart on the kingdom and his goodness,

and all these things will come to you as a matter of course. (J B Phillips)

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. (The Message)

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,

and all these things will be given to you as well. (NIV)

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,

and then all these things will be given to you too. (The Voice)

It used to drive me nuts when I would ask friends or colleagues how do be or do something in ministry & they would all give me the same answer.

To boil it all down, they would say if I simple got closer to God, worked on my relationship with Him, are the rest of that would take care of itself.

And that drove me nuts – you had to do more than that.

That seemed to be too simple – there had to be more to it.

I just figured they either didn't know the answer to my “how to...” question, or they didn't want to give away their secret of how to be or do something.

Somewhere around the turn of the century, having nothing to lose, & having had nothing else work satisfactorily, I did what people had been telling me to be & do for decades – I started working on my relationship with Him.

Part of that working on my relationship with Him entailed me reading the Bible everyday, without fail.

(You knew I was going to say that! ;-) )

And ya know what?

I found out they were right.

So the whole deal is this:

whatever we are wanting to know about what we should be or what we should do can be found by simply working on our relationship with Jesus,

listening to what He says in the Bible,

& listening to what He will say to us in our spirit.

Trust me, if you read the Bible every day, without fail, & listen out for what God may have to say to you through it, you will not have a problem getting God to talk to you.

It'll be hard to get Him to shut up.

What my friends & colleagues have been telling me all along is the truth.

Get closer to Him, & everything else will line up behind what you learn from that relationship.