Seek First - Seek His Kingdom, His Righteousness

 

MATTHEW 6:33

But seek first the kingdom of God and His Righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.

What is the kingdom of God and how do we find it? 

Romans 4:17

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in The Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 4:20

For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. 

    To find the kingdom of God we must first seek out His Holy Spirit and be baptized by The Spirit, that we may receive every good and perfect gift which God has prepared for us. 

    When the disciples were baptized with The Holy Spirit, they received the power to preach the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ with boldness and fearlessness. Being eager to share immediately what they had received from Christ and The Spirit, they began to speak from the rooftop of the building where they had gathered in fellowship and prayer. 

    When Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, he was temporarily blinded, until a saint prayed for him and he was filled with The Holy Spirit. From being a persecutor of Christians to being a most faithful minister of God's Word, Paul began to speak with power and wisdom and knowledge. For The Word which he knew became clearer to him; he could now share what he knew to be The Truth of the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. 

    What are we waiting for? Seek out God's Holy Spirit, if you do not know Him. God is Father. Jesus Christ is Son. The Holy Spirit is Breath. When God breathes on you, you will know it is God giving you His Spirit. When God first breathed on me, I could sing in The Spirit, which I still do. Then God breathed on me and I studied in ministry and became a preacher of The Word of God. 

    God will give you His Holy Spirit, if you are in the right place to receive Him. I saw The Holy Spirit at work in a little country church and knew that I needed that. But it took almost three years before I was ready and in the right place in my walk with Christ. 

    The Kingdom of God can only be found when we are seeking God in His Word and in prayer with Him. There's no other way. 

Paul's Prayer to the Church in Ephesus:

    Ephesians 3:16-19

I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 

    What is God's Righteousness?

James 4:8

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Isaiah 1:16, 17

Wash and cleanse yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil! / Learn to do right; seek justice and correct the oppressor. “Defend the fatherless and plead the case of the widow.”

Micah 6:8

 He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does The LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

     To achieve the Righteousness of God we must believe in our hearts, and confess with out mouths, that JESUS CHRIST IS LORD. For Christ is our Righteousness. He is The Righteousness we "put on" when we come to faith in what He has done for us on the cross, in the grave and in the garden. He died for our sins, fought and overcame death, hell and the grave, and walked out in newness of life. He was completely changed, for no one recognized Him when first they met Him after He rose from the dead. Until He spoke their names.

    The Holy Spirit and the church call out now to all who will hear, all who will listen, all who desire a closer walk with Jesus Christ to come to the cross. See The Servant of God taking our punishment, for God had laid the sins of the whole world from all of time upon His shoulders. The weight alone must have been near unbearable. And then, God had to turn His face from His only begotten Son, for God is holy and sin cannot be in God's holy presence. 

    We need to repent of the wickedness in our hearts and lives. Turn our hearts to God and give Him control ( the right to rule with grace and love) of our lives. Daily we meet with our God to receive that which He wants to give us. Sometimes we fail in our walk; we stumble, we fall. But we get right back up and keep on walking. 

    We who believe have The Righteousness of God upon us and we are helping Him to build His kingdom one soul at a time. Are you that soul that is longing for a loving, merciful God? Come to Jesus. And walk with us. 

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

THERE'S A HOLY AND BEAUTIFUL CITY

JESUS MADE THE DIFFERENCE 

GIVE ME A HEART LIKE THINE

Seek First - Seek My Face

 

PSALM 27:8

My heart said, "Seek His Face." Your Face, O LORD, I will seek.

    I ended the year 2024 with the phrase "By Faith" for moving forward in my life. I am beginning 2025 with "Seek First" added to it. 

    You would think the longer a person walks with God the easier it is to walk with God. Not so. Life is still life and there are always distractions to tempt us away from walking out our faith on this Way of Holiness. 

    When David wrote this psalm, he was praising God for deliverance. Both his age and his circumstances at that time are unknown. Here he reveals his own heart that the saints may be encouraged in The LORD and strengthened in their commitment and desire to seek out God's presence at all times. 

    We, too, can praise God for the deliverance He has given us in these New Testament times. For the deliverance with which He has blessed us in His own Son, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. Our deliverance came by way of the cross on which He died. Our eternal life came by way of the empty tomb, where His body once lay as He Himself fought hell and won, for He holds the keys of death, hell and the grave. 

    No more would death be feared, for The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, The Ruler of All Nations, had conquered them all and made a Way to reach God and live forever in His presence. But in order to receive this wonderful deliverance we first have to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. 

    Though the saints of the Old Testament had not yet seen The Promise of God, they lived their lives believing God, even when they stumbled in their walk, they repented and moved ahead. By faith. Seeking God's divine will first and then following in obedience to that will. 

    So, today, as this new year has begun, let us by faith enter into a divine relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and daily seek His face, His presence. Not asking anything, just wanting to spend time with Him: in prayer, in Bible study, in worship. For there is no better way than The Way to get through what we are about to go through. 

WALK WITH ME - Jesus Culture

Seek His Presence

 

1 CHRONICLES 16:11

Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face continually [longing to be in His presence]. (Amplified Bible).

Psalm 105:4

Seek out the LORD and His strength; seek His face always.

Isaiah 63:1

A Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. 

    God's people are always hungering for more of God. To see His face and His glory is the hope of every saint. When we seek God's kingdom, as He tells us to do (Matthew 6:33), we are seeking an audience with our King, a one-on-one moment, where we not only see Him clearly, but also hear Him quite plainly.

    To seek God's Kingdom is to believe that His plan of salvation through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son JESUS CHRIST on the cross, and then to have Him go through hell via death and the grave in order to conquer them once and for all, is to seek a personal intimate relationship with JESUS CHRIST. It is the most important love relationship a person will ever encounter. 

HEBREWS 6:11

But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. 

    It takes wisdom to seek this CHRIST of whom so many have a limited knowledge, or even awareness of. It takes an inner determination to dig into The Word of God and find JESUS. All we have to do is ask. God reveals Himself and opens up our understanding of His Word, when we are earnestly seeking to know Him.

Matthew 7:7, 8

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened unto you.

For everyone asking receives; and the one seeking finds; and to the one knocking, it will be opened.

    God wants us to know Him better. God wants us to live with Him forever. But unless we believe that JESUS CHRIST IS LORD and repent of our wicked ways; turn from participating in the sins we once took delight in, and begin to focus our lives and hearts on what pleases God, we will never gain the eternal presence of God.

    When we die, not everyone goes to heaven. And the saints of God who do die before Christ's return, do not become angels. That is angel worship. Who we are inside these bodies will go with us into death. The body will perish, but the soul is eternal. If that soul is saved, it will live forever with God. If that soul is not saved, it will die forever in hell and the lake of fire afterwards. 

    Seek God. Seek Him now. Now is all we ever have to seek God. Let us read His Word and go to Him in prayer. Together.

SEEK FIRST - Jason Upton