Today's "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers is an excellent and very timely message!
Divine Reasonings Of
Faith
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and
all these things shall be added unto you. — Matthew 6:33
Immediately
we look at these words of Jesus, we find them the most revolutionary statement
human ears ever listened to. “Seek ye first the kingdom of
God.” We argue in exactly the opposite way, even the most spiritually-minded of
us — “But I must live; I must make so much
money; I must be clothed; I must be fed.” The
great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God, but how we are to fit
ourselves to live. Jesus reverses the order: Get rightly related to God first,
maintain that as the great care of your life, and never put the concern of your
care on the other things.
“Take no thought for your life….” Our
Lord points out the utter unreasonableness from His standpoint of being so
anxious over the means of living. Jesus is not saying that the man who takes
thought for nothing is blessed — that man is a fool. Jesus taught that a
disciple has to make his relationship to God the dominating concentration of
his life, and to be carefully careless about everything else in comparison to
that. Jesus is saying — Don’t make the ruling factor of your life what you
shall eat and what you shall drink, but be concentrated absolutely on God. Some
people are careless over what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they
are careless about what they wear, and they look as they have no business to look;
they are careless about their earthly affairs, and God holds them responsible.
Jesus is saying that the great care of the life is to put the relationship to
God first, and everything else second.
It is
one of the severest disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit
to bring us into harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.
I LOVE that he puts it THIS way: Don't make the ruling factor of your life what you shall eat and what you shall drink"! He isn't saying not to THINK about those things at all, we have the responsibility to keep this temple healthy, rested, strong and ready for action. What he IS saying is that those natural things should NEVER be the RULING factor in any decision! God is well able to supernaturally provide for anything we would need. Our #1 priority MUST be to be obedient to the Word of God and the Spirit of God! AMEN! When our priorities are right, everything else will fall right into place! Seek FIRST the Kingdom of God! AMEN! Here is Hillsong Worship with "Crowns", which is all about counting the cost and putting FIRST things FIRST!
Shalom in Him!
