What Are You Looking For?

Daily Reading: Matthew 6

Scripture Focus: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6.33)

Devotional Thought:  Are you worried about things in your life?  In days of pandemic and protest, who isn't?  Jesus gives us a solution for worry: Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness!

If you are seeking the things of this world, then worry will be a continuing part of your life for at least two reasons:

·       Everything in this world is temporary: food, clothing, houses, health, relationships, even life itself.  When we occupy ourselves with acquiring these things, we must invariably be anxious over them, for we know – at least in the back of our minds – that we cannot keep them.  Food gets eaten; clothes go out of style or wear out (or for some of us, we grow out of them!).  Homes have to be left behind as we age.

·       We all have a tendency to compare.  I can always find somebody who has nicer clothes, drives a better car, owns a faster computer, lives in a bigger home, or has better health.  That last one is getting easier and easier to do as I pass through my 60’s!  If we are seeking these things, then we will be discontented seeing others with better versions of them.

The solution, of course, is to seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, for when we seek the Kingdom above all else, we discover that we cannot exhaust our possibilities for growth.  When we seek God’s righteousness above all else, we will increasingly conform to the perfection of his character.  And that's what God made us for!

God alone is eternal.  When we seek him, we lay hold of eternity.  When eternity is within our grasp, we need not worry.  What are you looking for?  Don't worry!  Seek God!

Prayer: Lord, it is so easy to be enamored by the things of this world.  The next shiny object grabs our attention and we are not satisfied until we make it our own.  Help us, instead, to seek you and your Kingdom.  Then we will have all we need.  Amen.

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 81.1-7

1 Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob!

2 Raise a song; sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp.

3 Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our feast day.

4 For it is a statute for Israel, a rule of the God of Jacob.

5 He made it a decree in Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt. I hear a language I had not known:

6 "I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket.

7 In distress you called, and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah