The Kingdom

"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you." (Matthew 6:33)

The kingdom of God.  When I was a seminary student I chose to write a paper on that very topic because I really didn't understand the meaning of the term.  What I discovered was that the kingdom of God is past, present, and future.  In other words, God is sovereign and He reigns all the time and everywhere.  Of course, you can choose to acknowledge His sovereignty or not, but it still does not diminish His kingship over all people for all eternity. 

The verse I typed above has been very inspiring and humbling to me.  It speaks of a kingdom where God is our provider and, as His servants, we simply need to seek Him and trust Him with our basic needs which He in turn will be faithful to meet.  When we pursue God, our focus won't be on our selfish desires.  Instead, we will be happy to accept what He grants to us and can live contently with those things.  Some will be granted more than others, but the promise remains the same: "all these things will be provided for you."

As one who is in the middle of ministry opportunities (i.e., I'm not serving vocationally right now), I understand the need to trust in God to provide for basic needs.  All of us go through periods in our lives where we wonder how and when God will provide for our needs.  It's during those times that it becomes easy to be a "schemer."  We scheme and plot for ways for us to catch up or get ahead and in doing so we often makes these plans apart from trusting in God's wisdom and provision.  We trump seeking first God's kingdom and righteousness in favor of trusting in the abilities of ourselves and others.

If you are a citizen of a country (which all of you are) you will live under the reign of a government of some kind.  Most governments provide services to their citizens, services such as trash pick up, medical care, education, etc.  These are all good things; I don't want to try to do all of these by myself.  But a problem can arise with all of this.  People can become so dependent on government to provide for them that they no longer seek God to provide for them or strive to work at an honorable job.  Instead of trusting God's kingdom and His willingness and ability to provide they begin to rely on an earthy "kingdom" to meet their basic needs.

This isn't how God's citizens are to behave, but unfortunately that's how we've allowed things to be.  When we study the Bible we will find that those in our society who have the greatest needs did not have to line up at government office to have those needs met (Acts 2:41-47).  Instead, the church - God's people - stepped up to meet the needs of "the least of these."  That isn't some far flung ideal; that's biblical reality. 

God's kingdom stretches beyond just our own basic needs being met.  As kingdom citizens, we are to be used as instruments of God to meet the financial, emotional, physical, and spiritual needs of others.  What a challenge for God's people!