Good morning,

Math 6:33, “But Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be ADDED unto you”

Wanted to share a message I shared on back in 2002 that was a blessing
to me. I needed to be challenged again by it this morning. I pray you
are too. Be blessed as you read it

Prayer is not reserved for when we are in trouble, prayer is a daily communication with the Creator whether we are in need of something from Him or not. Prayer is the backbone that keeps him or her standing strong. It’s one thing to talk about prayers, it another thing to do it. We are told in James 1:22, “Be ye doers of the word not just hearers only deceiving your own self”. The word is not complete when it’s heard, it can only be complete when what has been received is put into practice. We could talk about faith, healing, provisions but unless we put it into practice we will be deceiving ourselves.

Math 6:33, “But Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness…”. This is one of the scripture verses people know by heart, it has be used in the songs, quoted, used in sermons and the like but it’s kind of interesting how it started with a “BUT”. Any time someone uses the word “BUT”, there must have been something communicated earlier related to it and the “BUT” becomes a condition that comes with what had been said earlier. Let’s go back to vs. 31, “Therefore do not worry, saying, “what shall we eat? or drink? or what shall we wear? vs. 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. Your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, vs. 33 BUT”. It’s already been established that God knows what we need and desire even before we look to Him but He says SEEK YE FIRST which means put God first, call on Him first, before you worry about anything and before you begin to bring things before Him, PUT HIM FIRST. You cannot confidently come to someone and ask them for something if you are not close to them, that just puts you in an awkward position. The word SEEK is very powerful, seek is to look for, search for, try to find, hunt for and that tells me that seeking God’s Kingdom is not an easy task for you have to search for it, you got to find it, you got to linger longer, you got to hunt for it. That is why prayer is not easy I struggle with it myself and even sharing on prayers becomes tough.

We’ve looked at SEEK and now it says FIRST the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, mark the way it puts it, it doesn’t say bring all your requests, questions, and desires first, it says seek His Kingdom first meaning find God’s presence by worshipping Him, giving Him glory, honoring Him, Exalting Him for you are not seeking a small thing you are actually seeking a KINGDOM. There is more to the kingdom than the give me list we are prepared with. Seeking the Kingdom of God first humbles me as the awesome presence of God who presents and represents the Kingdom shows up and we are engulfed by the kingdom principles and all our fleshly ambitions and desires are consumed by the presence of God and now we pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. I have been to prayer services and even heard people pray and the first things I heard was the give me list being presented to God. Where is seeking the Kingdom of God first and His righteousness? Our prayers can never be answered if we haven’t confessed our sins before God and therefore when we pray for righteousness, we are praying for purification, sanctification, washing and mercy, Heb 4:16, “let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need”. We have to obtain mercy before grace can abound and the only way we can obtain mercy is by admitting that we have sinned against heaven and are humbled by the fact that we have failed, then mercy is given and then when we are in need to which we always are, grace is offered. Now grace is not given to the qualifiers but to the ones who have been shown mercy. I believe that if we can develop how we come before God so seek His kingdom and His righteousness, at times the things that we were going to bring before Him would just be added even before we mention them. For if you go back to vs. 31&32 it says, He knows that you need these things then shall be added to you. Hold here for a sec, it says all these things will be “ADDED” not “GIVEN”. Why added and not given? because in  the process of seeking, you are changed, touched, forgiven, convicted, transformed and these are given as priority for we need them and now the other things we were bringing before Him are just additions to what we desired of Him.

Mark 11:24, “What things so ever you desire when you pray, believe you receive them and you shall have them”. Remember we talked about the desires of our hearts? the more you spend time with God, the more He reveals to you and the more that becomes your desires. When you and I seek Him first, He will give us the Kingdom stuff, reveal to us more and we can begin to desire them and now we can pray for them to be fulfilled.

Thanks
Evans