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Give secretly to the needy. Pray often and deeply, passionately seeking the face of God. Joyfully and secretly fast. Invest in things of eternal consequence. When it comes to your bills, be at peace.

This is what Matthew describes in chapter six to live the Kingdom Life; to Seek First the Kingdom of God. When we live with other-centered love as our motive and the rubric for our decision-making paradigm, we place ourselves in a space where our needs are His problem instead of our own.

In this space, we proclaim, “O death, where is thy sting, O grave, where is thy victory!” When we live, seeking not health, wealth, and wisdom, but only His will and glory; when we live surrendered to His will and way; when we live no longer concerned with our mortal ‘coil,’ we walk through this world no longer concerned for our meals, for our bills, for our health, for our safety. We have “cast our cares upon Him and He cares for us!” How can the diseases of this world harm us as we are calling upon the name of the Lord to heal the afflicted?! Yet, if disease should overtake us, our cry is that of Daniel’s three friends, “Our God, whom we serve, shall deliver us! But, if He does not deliver us, we still would not bow down.” Because we are seeking first the Kingdom of God, our cry echoes that of Jesus in the Garden, “yet not My will, but Thine.”

If you are a teenager asking, How do I ‘seek first the kingdom of God’? When you have more homework than can be done, and tests, and extra-curriculars and you are just completely overwhelmed maybe it looks something like still stopping to help a classmate, or a neighbor; placing your work and the results in God’s hands because you are on His mission. He knew about your busy schedule when He called you to serve. So, give Him your schedule and serve Him! Peacefully leave the results up to Him.

Or, maybe it looks like risking your social standing to speak up against bullying or sexual harassments.

Or maybe it looks like praying for and being nice to people who are less than nice to you.

Seeking first His Kingdom Life may have you spend less time in studying for your big test so you can spend more time in prayer and Bible study and reflection.

As a parent, Seeking first His Kingdom may mean giving up some precious down-time to spend playing with kiddos. It may mean restricting our own screen time so we have more time with God; with our children; with our spouse; with our family. It may mean surrendering that annual vacation so that we have the time and money to serve in ways God has been calling us to for eons, but we just never seem to get there. It may mean changing the way we live so that we can live the life we long for our children to live; making the choices we long for them to one-day make.

Seeking First the Kingdom means everything else takes a back seat and the practical stuff, like security, safety, food, lodging, clothing, bills…it all becomes His problem to solve.

Today…Seek…and ye shall find…when you seek with all your heart!