But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

      Matthew 6:33

Today’s passage is key to the seeking of God and enjoying the provision that He promises in His word. As a part of a larger passage dealing with money and material things, Jesus concludes with this declaration, containing an instruction and a promise.

The Instruction

“Seek first His (God’s) kingdom and His righteousness…” In addition to loving God, which the first and greatest commandment, what should be our focus in this life? We are to be seeking first God’s kingdom. Do you see the priority here? Nothing should come ahead of our loving God and seeking His kingdom. That means we are to be kingdom-minded, eternally-minded. With that said, what do you observe in the world around you as far as priorities are concerned? More importantly, what do you observe in your own life dealing with how you prioritize your day, your time, your money, and so forth? 

But if we seek God’s kingdom, as the most important thing we do daily, and also desire to have the righteousness of God applied to us on the basis of faith in Jesus (Romans 4:4-5), then we can claim the promise of God.

The Promise

“All of these things will be added to you.” What are “all of these things?” If we look at the context of this passage and realize that Jesus is addressing the issue of money and material things then we know that He is promising to take care of us materially and provide for us, everything that we need. And if your testimony is anything like mine, then you know that, not only does God provide all of our needs, but also lavishes on us blessings beside. God is benevolent and wants to meet your every need. Only, remember that we are to be proactive in this process meaning that we don’t sit on the couch, in our laziness, and wait for God to drop money out of the sky rather, as we work and pursue His calling in our life, seeking Him above everything else, then we can know that He will provide everything that we need. This is why, shortly after this declaration, we see Jesus encouraging us to ask:

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 

    Matthew 7:7-8

We will receive, we will find, and the door will be opened. These are definitive statements and are more promises from Christ for everyone who is willing to seek Him first and make kingdom work a priority in their life. 

But it’s important that we do not gloss over all of this too quickly. We live in a world that sends a very different message to us, our children, and grandchildren. Jesus tells us “not to store up for ourselves treasures on earth” (Matthew 6:19). I firmly believe that part of this is that God wants us to trust Him in the area of money (see the people of Israel and the manna, Exodus 16). In addition to that, focusing on money rather than God can take us down roads not conducive for Christians to walk. Rather, Jesus tells us to “store up for ourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20). Jesus tells us that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also (Matthew 6:21). He goes on to tell us that we cannot serve both Him and chase after money at the same time (Matthew 6:24). So why is all of this important? We need to be seeking God above all other things yet it doesn’t seem that this is always the case, even in the church. We have to make a choice. We want to claim the promise of God and rest in the provision that He says He will provide but if we are not seeking Him first and foremost, that promise is not ours to claim. This is serious business. Seeking God must be the most important pursuit in our lives. But the world is loud and will bombard our children with bad advice, encouraging them to focus on self and to strive to gain everything that they can in this life. This is quite contrary to the truth of God’s word. So, it is our responsibility as parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, mentors, and the like, to let our children know the truth and encourage them to seek God above all other activities. And we cannot expect our children to do this, if we, as the parents and grandparents, are not modeling this important life pursuit for them.

So provision is ours and it is the perfect provision of God but it only applies to those who have surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ, having been born again, now living transformed lives, seeking God and His kingdom, and forsaking the world’s philosophies and ways. Seek first the kingdom of God!

But they who seek the Lord shall not be in want of any good thing.

      Psalm 34:10b