I have heard it say, there are certain positions that you do not seek but they come to you. Often times, people that have been given high positions like senators, presidents, or CEOs will tell you that they were offered the position. Someone told them to put their names down and eventually convinced them to apply or to run for that office. I think the same is true for us in Christ. Once we have given our life to Christ, our allegiance is now to God and He decides where we go and who we will become. Which means, often times, God will ask us to put our names down for a position in His service for which we do not feel competent or qualified. I truly believe we do not even have to find God’s will for our lives because if we are yielded to Him and only seek to please Him, seeking first His kingdom, then His will for us will be clear. So, are you trying to figure out what is the will of God for your life? May I suggest that you seek Him first, that you make Him your priority and I guarantee you, His Will will be clearer for you. How then do you seek the kingdom of God first? I am no expert in that however, as I imitate the traits I see in biblical figures like Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Paul, etc. I start getting a sense of what that means. My goal today, is to share some of what I have found, particularly the two ingredients that are capital in seeking the kingdom of God.
One of the key ingredient to seeking the kingdom of God first is humility. It’s very odd, I know but if you think about it, in his sermon on the mount in Matthew 5, Jesus’ first beatitude says “blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Humility is the first ingredient because to seek God’s kingdom it means you are recognizing that you are not all that and you need a better kingdom than the one you are currently living in. Like in the beatitude, you ought to recognize yourself as poor before you can accept to be filled with riches or be brought out of your poverty. No wonder Jesus often said that he did not come for the healthy but for those that are sick. It takes humility to recognize one’s failings, or shortcomings. Moreover, humility allows us as we seek the kingdom of God to align ourselves with the ways of the kingdom; how to live in it, how to interact in it, how to grow in it. The idea behind seeking the kingdom of God does not just stop at finding it; when you find it, you need to enter it to discover it. God expects us to scrutinize Him, to look at His ways, to delight in His ways, to follow His ways, to obey His ways. Seeking the kingdom of God does not mean you look for where it is like it is a place, no, it means you diligently seek to know what happens in there, how are the people in there, what does one do to be in there? It reminded me of the time when God told Moses to get some men from the Israelites’ community to go and explore the land He was giving them. The idea behind it was to allow the people to go see what the Promised Land looked like, what was in the land in terms of produce, who lived in it and whether or not it was indeed a land flowing with “milk and honey”. God wanted them to attest to that truth. Unfortunately, we know what happened there, in this whole God-ordained exploratory exercise only two men (Caleb and Joshua) came back with a report that was aligned with what God had said, others, which were the majority had a negative report which ended up being the report the Israelites believed, leading them to complain against God and eventually costing them their lives. Had all the men come back with a positive report like Caleb and Joshua, Israel’s story would not have been what we know of today, hence the importance of yielding to what God has said, to His ways, to His promises.
The second ingredient in my opinion is perseverance. In perseverance you have diligence, you have endurance, and you have steadfastness. All these attributes are needed when one is seeking the kingdom of God. In the words to seek, there is an implication that the thing to be sought is not readily available. You do not seek for something that is right there, something that you see. In other words, the fact that the kingdom of God has to be sought, means it is not out in the open for everyone, only the “seekers” will find it. Just as it says in Proverbs 25 that “it is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings”, it is the same with us as we seek God’s kingdom. Remember, Jesus often spoke in parable for the same reason, the meaning of it was concealed and meant only for the “seekers”. Those who often came back to ask what it meant received the meaning, just like Nicodemus or the disciples. We know that for us, when we seek we will find; it is a promise of God (Matthew 7:7). But more than that, there is a sense in which it is important. You only seek what has value. People will seldom seek things just for the sake of it, there is value in what is sought after and the longer the search, the tedious the search, the more glorious its find. It is a bit like we are in a treasure hunt with God and the beauty is that He wants to be found! God has made it simple for us to know and find Him, we have His words and we have His Holy Spirit in us. It is a pity that we go about our daily lives without seeking to submit to Him, without seeking Him when we actually need Him. Instead, we spend our time seeking things that do not bring us any value, or if they do, the effect is such ephemeral that we are left wondering what happened and are brought back to our initial state of searching for more. No wonder Jesus told us to not lay up treasure for ourselves where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal but instead advised us to lay them in Heaven which is secure and no thieves can break in or moth and rust destroy (Matthew 6:19-20).
In light of this, would you seek the kingdom of God? If you are still unsure about how to do it, would you start with small steps? Perhaps start reading a couple of verses every day, a chapter of the bible every day, or a devotional? The key is consistency. Or if that is still too overwhelming, would you set out to get acquainted with biblical figures and their stories to be encouraged? How about starting to listen to a sermon regularly, a podcast on God or the things of God? There are even podcasts that simply stream the audio version of the bible. You can listen to it, over and over again at your own pace. In all this seeking, in all your efforts remember to pray because this is our biggest expression of our humility. In prayer, we acknowledge we cannot do this on our own and I know God honours such attitude. I think you get my point, first be humble and second be perseverant because your heavenly Father is awaiting, He has made a way for you to find Him, so what are you waiting for?
A Word Aptly Spoken 