Seeking God’s Kingdom

KEY VERSE: “Seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.” —Luke 12:31

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Luke 12:13-34

JESUS realized the need for this kind of admonition. He knew that his disciples would have to struggle constantly to keep their affections set on things above. He knew that the propensities of the flesh would be as a weight to drag them back into the ways of the world. He knew that the desire to make a good showing in the flesh would be a temptation to all his people, and that a whole-hearted seeking for the kingdom would be their main safeguard against these temptations.

Our Lord said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?”—Matt. 6:24,25

Obviously Jesus did not mean that his people should abandon all thought for their physical needs. Other translations indicate that his admonition was to take no anxious thought, or to be overly concerned about the things which the Lord knows we need. We are not to set our affections on these things, and allow them to become our master. To permit this would mean that we were failing to “seek first the kingdom of heaven.”

We seek the kingdom through the sacrifice of the material good things of life; yes, even of earthly life itself. Jesus reminded us forcibly of this when he said, “Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it” (Luke 17:33) Jesus here refers to our human life, and we could well include all of its associations—its comforts, its pleasures, its mutation, its hopes and ambitions. If we seek to save these at the expense of our spiritual interests we will not gain joint-heirship with Jesus in his kingdom.

As Jesus reminded us, our Heavenly Father knows that we have need of food, clothing, and shelter, and he expects us to give reasonable consideration to these things. The point is that our affections are not to be set on these things on the earth. These necessities of life are not to be viewed as “life,” and our main attention centered upon them. We are to be content with the reasonable provisions made by divine providence, and seek to use them in the Lord’s service, sacrificing time and comforts whenever and wherever there is an opportunity.

It is wholly upon the basis of faith that we ‘seek’ to be associated with Jesus in the ruling phase of his kingdom. We must have faith to believe that God is a rewarder of those who “diligently seek him.” (Heb. 11:6) Our faith is in God whom we cannot see, and in his promises of rewards which are invisible, except to the eye of faith.

If our faith is strong we will be able to consider as of secondary importance the material things of life—the things which we can see with the natural eye, tangible to the flesh—and take a firm hold of the promises of God and forge ahead in the way of sacrifice which leads to the goal we seek. We cannot successfully serve the kingdom while clinging to the things of the earth—those things which are actually of such trifling worth in comparison to the eternal joys of joint-heirship with Jesus in the kingdom.

Paul wrote, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. … Set your affection [Margin, mind] on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:1,2) Is our affection really set on things above? Jesus expressed the thought very clearly when he said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”—Matt. 6:21

We set our affection upon the things which we treasure, or consider of great value. Earthly riches are highly treasured by the world, but Jesus explained what our attitude toward the things of the world should be when he said, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.”—Matt. 6:19,20

True, we are to rejoice if, in the Lord’s providence we enjoy a measure of good things according to the flesh. But we are to think of them mainly from the standpoint of how we can use them in the service of the Lord, knowing that all we have is devoted to him and to his cause.

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