Day 4 - Week 33 - Matthew 6:33, "But seek first God's kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

But seek first God's kingdom and His righteousness...

What does it mean to you to seek God's kingdom?  If we're supposed to be seeking it, it might be a good idea to know what it is we're seeking!

Looking up "kingdom" in the original Greek brings some insight to me that I had not considered before.  I think when I've read this verse I've thought that I should be longing for heaven and seeking my way toward it.  But when I read this definition of kingdom, it brings some other thoughts to mind...

royal power, kingship, dominion, rule; not to be confused with an actual kingdom but rather the right or authority to rule over a kingdom

Now I'm thinking that what I am to be seeking is God's absolute kingship over me.  I need to be seeking His authority over my life, my total submission to His rightful dominion over me.  Totally contrary to my nature, but totally in line with what God desires of me.

I very often establish myself as ruler of my own little kingdom...I have my family, my job, my friends...and that is my "territory". But what Jesus is saying to me is that I have no territory to call my own...everything is God's and I need to acknowledge that.  He is ruler over all and I need to earnestly and daily seek to more readily relinquish all that I think I possess into His hands, for in all honesty, it is His anyway.

If I am professing God as my King, then I need to act like He is my King...in all ways, at all times.  I now think that is what Jesus meant when He instructed us to "seek God's kingdom."

All right, I've improved my understanding of what I am to be seeking in response to the first half of Jesus' instruction...so now what about seeking His righteousness? 

In looking at other verses that use this same word for righteousness, "dikaiosune", one of the first verses that I looked at was Romans 10:3, where Paul was discussing the hard headed Jews who would not submit to the idea that they may have been wrong about Jesus... "For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

See, again, I think I've always had the wrong idea about this part of the verse as well .  I've always thought that I was supposed to be attempting to be as good as God, which has never worked out very well for me. 

But now, I think Jesus was starting to point our minds toward the fact that we are to submit (there's that word again!) to God's righteousness rather than trying to rely on our own ability to be righteous, a pursuit that will only lead to frustration and anxiety.

So tonight I have a whole new understanding of this verse that I will continue to dwell on...I will now seek God's absolute and supreme authority over my life, and I will seek His righteousness to cover my unworthiness, admitting that I can never attain any degree of true Godly righteousness. 

It's actually a great picture of the balance of God --- He is a God of total power, yet He is a God of total mercy --- and all Jesus is saying is to seek to know Him in the fullness of both of these attributes.

Day 2 - Week 33 - Matthew 6:33 "But seek first God's Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

This morning (yes, I was so tired last night I went to sleep before I could blog!), I woke up with the refrain, "This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long!" going through my head , and I thought "This is going to be a good day!!!" 

I am known to be quite a sanguine-type personality...very outgoing, never meet a stranger, and not at all afraid to make a complete idiot of myself if it means someone will laugh!  But what a lot of people don't know about me, and might find surprising, is that I have always loved math, algebraic formulas, and absolutely get a kick out of designing Excel spreadsheets that can accomplish multitudes of tasks.  That doesn't seem to line up with my sanguine personality, although I'm here to argue that sanguines can be smart!

One of the functions in Excel that I love using is the "if-then" formula.  It is based on "if this is a true condition, then this will be the stated result."  When I read our verse this morning, it made me realize that many of God's promises are stated in this same formula setting. 

IF we seek God's Kingdom and His righteousness above all else...

THEN all other things will be added to our lives.

As humans, we want the "then" without the "if".  We want to think that we have a Heavenly Father who is just going to shower us with blessings no matter what.  But God wants more for us...He strongly desires to bless us, as He sees us growing up and maturing in Him.  Because just as someone said long ago, "Our character is much more important to God than our comfort."

God's promises are always worth the "if"...the "if" is what will teach us more and more about who He is and will show us how we can grow to be more like Him. 

Just as in algebra, you needed a balanced equation.  You can leave out any factor.  He has designed the formula to produce the desired result.  Seeking Him above all else will bring us His blessing. 

Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness lost in His love.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.

Yes - this IS going to be a good day!  Thank You, my Jesus, for blessing me as I seek You today...help me to put You above everything else and to remember that You are able to do immeasurably more than I can even begin to ask or imagine.  Keep my eyes open to You and Your wonder today! 

Day 1 - Week 33 - Starting ten verses of God's Promises!

I'm still being carried along by the spirit of Christian fellowship and encouragement from tonight's Bible study.  What a lesson we had tonight on the immeasurable, beyond our imaginations, ability of God.  I realized how often I limit God to my possibilities, forgetting that He is way beyond my limited conception of His power.  I hope to never again limit my prayers to the scope of what I think is able to be altered by God...EVERYTHING is subject to Him and able to be changed by Him!  What I learned tonight is that my part is to bring all things to God knowing that He is absolutely able to resolve my issues; God's part is to determine how in His sovereignty He will resolve those issues...and His resolution will always be good and will always reflect His love toward me.  I think these realizations on my part were reinforced by many of the
verses that we have meditated on over these past weeks.  God is using all things together to build our faith in Him!

And onward we go....and what a blessing we will receive from the next ten verses as they all contain promises of God to us!  Since this is a group of ten, we will now drop of our section of verses on the gift of Scripture, so you may want to go over those six verses periodically to keep them fresh in your heart!

So starting with The Gift of Prayer and going through our last four verses of Praise.....

The Gift of Prayer (3)
Hebrews 4:16 Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time.

1 John 5:14   Now this is the confidence we have before Him, whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

1 John 5:15   And if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked Him for.

The Gift of Assurance (10)

1 John 5:11 And this is the testimony:  God has given us eternal life and that life is in His Son.

1 John 5:12-13  The one who has the Son has life.  The one who doesn't have the Son of God, does not have life.  I say these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know you have eternal life.

John 14:1  Your heart must not be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in Me.

John 14:2  In my Father's house are many mansion, if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.

John 14:3  And if I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you unto Myself, so that where I am, you may be also.

John 14:6  Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through Me.

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you.  I do not give as the world gives.  Your heart must not be troubled or afraid.

Isaiah 26:3-4  You will keep in perfect peace the mind that is dependent on You, for it is trusting in You.  Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.

Isaiah 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed . (KJV)

Isaiah 53:6  We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished Him for the iniquities of us all.

Praise and Thanksgiving (4)

1 Peter 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  According to His great mercy He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Psalm 100:4  Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.  Give thanks to Him and praise His name. 

Psalm 100:5  For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Revelation 4:11  You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.

Are you wondering which promise will be first...well it will make perfect sense when you hear it!

Matthew 6:33  But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (ESV)

I love this translation of the verse --- but I just have to share how this verse reads in The Message:

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.

Oh how ready I believe I am to abandon the pursuit of the many things that distract me from seeking the Kingdom of God!  Help me, Holy Spirit, to cling to that conviction and throw myself into the reckless pursuit of You...my absolute Provider!

Day 7 - Week 32 - Revelation 4:11 "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory, and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they were created and have their being."

How can you look at creation and not sing the praises of God?  How can you look at creation and not know that God not only exists, but that He is a masterful designer, a  God of artistic wonder --- for as I said in our first week of this journey, He didn't have to make it this beautiful!

But not only did God create a perfectly designed, artistically grand and  beautiful existence for His creation, but He continues, minute by minute, to sustain it all, for it is in Him that everything "has its being."  Loosely translated, that's "kept together."  Without God's sustaining power, existence of all creation ceases to be.  The balance of the universe is suddenly out of balance; the exact combination of all of human life's needs are no longer to be found on Earth...God is the One who "keeps everything together."  

So when you look at the night sky and see the planets in the sky, not one of them spinning out of control - praise God!  When you take a drink of water that is not to be found on any other planet, yet is vital to our existence - praise God!  When you scratch yourself and the next day you can't even find the place where the injury occurred - praise God!  He is doing a mighty work in "keeping it all together!"

God's will brought man into this creation and God's will supplied man with every need-- most importantly the need for a Savior.  His will sent His Son to earth to live, teach, and die...and most importantly, to be raised from the dead and to ascend and sit at the right hand of God the Father. 

And God's will, one day in the future, will send His Son forth to gather all those who believe in Him to live with Him forever...and that day we will begin to sing His praises eternally!

I love the picture Robert J. Morgan paints of that existence...

I don't think our life in heaven is literally going to be one long church service; we'll be involved in many things throughout eternity.  But whenever we want, we'll be able to walk up the broad boulevard in New Jerusalem, heading toward the city center; and as we approach the throne, we'll hear the music and feel the ground vibrating under our feet.  We'll join a song in sweet accord and thus surround the throne! 

Day 6 - Week 32 - Revelation 4:11 "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."

Worship is the gyroscope of the soul  A person without personal patterns of worship is like a ship or an airplane without any stabilization or direction.  When we worship, we are aligning our minds to God's truth, our imagination to God's glory, our emotions to God's stability, and our souls to God's songs.  When we worship, we are approaching a glorious throne, joining an eternal chorus, praising a triune God, and glorifying a worthy Lord, saying, "You are worthy, our Lord  and God, to receive glory, and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they were created and have their being." - Robert J. Morgan

What is your personal pattern of worship?  I think that is a very pertinent question for each believer.  To be honest, I haven't really thought about my "pattern of worship" before, I have more often felt that my worship was spontaneous, when my appreciation of God and His majesty were so overflowing that I just had to express it in someway.  Or, on the flip side, my other style of worship was totally non-spontaneous---following the "Worship Service" program as written down in the church bulletin and worshipping God corporately with other believers in a very prescribed manner.

I'm not going to chastise myself for either of those modes of worship - I think they are both valid and valuable to me in my walk of faith and my relationship with God.  But what I just realized is that we also need an intentional "pattern of worship" in our daily lives so that even when things are not bringing to mind how wonderfully worthy our God is of our worship, we do it anyway!  For whether I am feeling worshipful or not, God is totally worthy of my worship.  And when I begin my time with Him worshipping Him, praising Him with words of adoration, my heart becomes alive with the awareness of just how amazing it is that I, me, Janice Roeckeman Hodges, can come before the Lord of the universe and give Him glory and honor....and that, most amazingly of all, He cares to receive it!  I think that's sometimes what we have the hardest time believing...that our worship of God matters to Him. 

When I read David's words in 1 Chronicles 16, they impress upon me a heart of worship, and the words are those that I can use in establishing a beautiful "pattern of worship" of my own!

 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering and come before him! Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth; yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved. Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice, and let them say among the nations, "The LORD reigns!" Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth. Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever! Say also: "Save us, O God of our salvation, and gather and deliver us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name, and glory in your praise. Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting!"   Then all the people said, "Amen!" and praised the LORD.

 AMEN!  Now let's praise the Lord!  In word and in lifestyles, let us bring our praise to Him...for He is worthy!

Day 5 - Week 32 - Revelation 4:11, "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."

Worshipping our God --- have you experienced moments of worship that truly take your breath away?  A few weeks ago, I had the privilege to attend a Living Proof Live event with Beth Moore in Lubbock, Texas.  Beth is an outstanding teacher of God's Word and I loved hearing her message urging us onward.  But just as important to me that days was the worship!  9,000 women singing in Spirit Arena bringing glory, honor and an amazing amount of power to our Lord!  Singing "Victory in Jesus", "In Christ Alone", and closing with "Shout to the Lord" brought tears to my eyes and left me elated knowing that we had truly lifted our voices up to our God and knowing that He had to have been so pleased at the sound!  Wow - for those moments the problems of this world we live in vanished and all seemed good!

Now I think about this verse in Revelation and the context it is set in.  For when these words are heard, John has been transported into the throne room of heaven.  He sees the 24 elders lay down their crowns before the throne and say, "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory, and honor and power, for You created all things and by Your will they were created and have their being."

As beautiful as the sound in Spirit Arena was, it cannot compare to the worship experience we will have when we are in the throne room of heaven!  For then we will be in God's presence and we will truly be in a holy, sin free environment where Satan no longer threatens us with his wiles and schemes.  All evil will have been conquered and good will not only prevail, but be the sole survivor! 

Worship is absolutely essential to our spiritual vitality and growth.  Worship here on earth is a beautiful thing...but I cannot help but enjoy imagining the intensity and unbelievable awesomeness of heavenly worship.  "Now we see through a glass dimly...." we've been given a small taste of what will come...hang on to your hats....the real thing is going to be absolutely worth the journey!