10/26/20~Matthew 6:33, NIV

The verse from Monday was one that caught my eye so I thought I'd talk about it. The verse of the day from Monday is Matthew 6:33 which reads, "But seek his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." (NIV). This got me thinking, what does it mean to seek the kingdom of God? How do we go about it? What does it mean to seek righteousness? To seek the kingdom of God is to seek out God and Jesus, to put God before everything else and to let Jesus be the ruler of our lives. We see this in the Lord’s Prayer, which is also in Matthew 6. The Lord’s Prayer states, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…” It continues from there, but what Jesus is asking us to pray is that the kingdom of heaven will come down to earth and that God will rule. Seeking God’s kingdom first can mean reading the Bible daily, praying, giving praise and thanksgiving to God, worship, and repenting for your sins among other things. To seek God is to put Him first and to realize that He is the one who gives you life and to serve Him. God loves us all and wants us to seek Him in order to be with Him in eternity. Seeking the kingdom of God is about faith and letting God have control, it’s surrendering ourselves and our lives to God and saying “you’re plans are better and greater than my own, so I will trust your timing and your plans.” In regards to righteousness, it is a good idea to first define what righteousness is. The definition most people think of is “the quality of being morally right or justifiable.” That, however, is not the righteousness we are talking about. The definition of the righteousness we are talking about is “the condition of being acceptable to God as made possible by God.” This means that we should seek God, follow what He commands, and let Him be in control of our lives. Righteousness is not so easily gained or kept because we must first realize that we cannot please God in our sinful state. This is why repenting for you sins and confessing them to God is important. We are given the gift of forgiveness because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. That grace is important for pursuing righteousness. When we ask for forgiveness, our sins are washed white and we are a clean slate. However, there are many sins that are not as obvious to us, sins that we have been committing that we are unaware of. This blocks our ability to seek righteousness. For example, the sin of idolatry is one of these sins because, most of the time, you do not even know you are committing it. Idolatry is the sin of loving something more than God, whether it be hanging out with friends, leisure time, money, watching tv, YouTube or playing video games, or even family. Now you may be thinking, “well it sounds like God doesn’t want me to enjoy life at all!” and that is not true. By all means, God does not mind if you play Call of Duty, watch things on Netflix or Youtube, or hang out with friends or family, or if you use your free time to be on social media while listening to music. God wants you to enjoy the life He gave you, but if you love something on earth more than you love God, that is where things go wrong. The point is, you cannot seek righteousness when you are living in sin, and you cannot seek God first when you are searching for other things more. Everyone sins, which is why Jesus died for us and made it so that all we have to do is ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness is why we can seek righteousness, and in Matthew 6:33, Jesus is trying to tell us that when it comes to seeking righteousness, it’s is about being in a right standing relationship (restored relationship) with God, which can only be found in Jesus through faith. So being a good person and making the right choices is important, but faith Jesus is the key to seeking righteousness. If we do these things God will be with us and provide for us, which is what the end of the the verse means.

Helpful Christian blogs/sites

Christianity.com (What Does it Mean to Seek God's Kingdom?)

gotquestions.org (What Does it Mean to Pursue Righteousness?)