To Encourage You

Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

One of the things that I’ve heard from people over the years is that it can be a real struggle for them to find time to study the Bible and pray. For young families, it’s the kids that consume so much of the day.  Then there’s the job and all its demands.  Of course, there is the house work and yard work. Perhaps there’s a construction or remodeling effort that a person is in the midst of. That’s a time eater as well.  And then we need time to recreate and spend time with family and friends. Our lives can be a whirlwind of activity, and the way we spend our time can be a constant battle of priorities.  

So, what does God have to say about all this? What’s his message to us in our busy, busy world?  It’s a very simple one. It’s laid out for us in the simple statement above which was spoken by Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount. It’s important to understand what Jesus said leading up to this verse. He was talking about all the cares of this life. He addresses the anxiety that can fill our lives in our struggles to make a living.  He describes this as the worry about what we’ll eat, drink, and wear.  These kinds of things can consume our thinking and our time.  He tells us to stop worrying about such things and to look at the birds and how God feeds them, and the flowers of the field and how God so gloriously “clothes” them.  And then the God Who created time said this: “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”  it’s a rhetorical question that He wants us to think deeply about as we consider the way we use our time.  And then He summarizes His thoughts with the words above, i.e., “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  

Here we have the thoughts of the God Who knows everything, can do anything, and sees everything that’s going on in each and every one of our lives.  He cuts to the chase when He says this. It’s the very key to all of life.  

Jesus said essentially the same thing to His friend Martha in Luke 10. In this account He’s visiting Martha and her sister Mary.  They were not only His friends but His disciples. They knew He was the Messiah, the King of kings.  In verses 38-42 of this chapter it says this: “Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.  But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’  But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.’”  

Here, like in Matthew 6, Jesus cuts to the chase as He tells Martha in all her busyness that only “one thing is necessary,” and He points to Mary as an example of one who knows what that one thing is.  You see, Mary had her priorities right, for as she sat and listened to Jesus, as she spent time with Him one on one, she was an example of a person who was seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness. She was an example of a person who saw these things as the very highest priority of life.  

So, what about you and what about me? Have we heard and understood what Jesus is telling us, or do we have other ideas about how we can better use our time?  Are we so busy with all the things that can consume our time – good things, mind you, like caring for our family and working at our jobs – that we relegate the One Who gave us both our family and our job, to second place?  If so, we need to think again, for what’s true for Martha and what’s true for the multitudes that heard the Sermon on the Mount is also true for us. We’re not some sort of exception.  We should never think that the words Jesus spoke over 2,000 years ago just don’t have relevance in our day and age.  No, the God Who created time and Who sovereignly placed us in the time in which we live, knew that one thing is absolutely necessary above all things. That one thing is to put first and foremost in life time alone with Him. It’s not that all those other things aren’t important. It’s not that we can neglect our kids and our jobs.  It’s just that our view of the “important things” can only be put in their proper perspective if we see God’s view of them first. And that view doesn’t come to us by accident. It only comes to anyone by time spent alone with Him.