Matthew 6:33 says if you will seek the Kingdom of God first, all these things will
be added unto you.
Notice the mathematical term added. It says all these things will be added to
you. Now from a perspective of real value addition
is meaningless unless we're dealing with numbers greater than zero.
Zero plus zero equals zero and this is true add infinitum.
One could add zeroes together until they stretch around the globe and still all the value of
those added zeroes would be zero.
Zero is the ultimate value of all the accessories we seek in life.
Movie stars and world leaders, business tycoons, all think that are very important.
And nightly news would have us to believe that
the world revolves around these people. Their influence, their power and their wealth.
But from God's perspective it's all nothingness and
utter futility. All of their wars, their struggles.
All of their efforts to rise to the top of the ladder
are worthless. And if this is so for the most powerful among
men, how much more for us?
When all is said and done, what is the purpose of everything that we do?
We struggle and toil all of our lives, pushing, striving
towards something. Some purpose, but what?
In an attempt to find meaning we tell ourselves that we're doing it all for our children,
but what do we actually teach our children?
From us they learn to add zeroes together and thus
they inherit the same meaningless futility with
which we've lived our own lives. All of the goods we acquire soon rot.
Precious memories are forgotten, money evaporates like the dew.
The world keeps spinning and changing as people and kingdoms come and go.
At the end of the day, everything the world has
to offer is utter meaninglessness with less value than a zero.
Yet people spend their entire lives adding these
meaningless zeroes together. But if we're seeking the kingdom of God first,
that means we've made God's Kingdom the priority
in our lives. And when God's Kingdom is number one suddenly
all the zeroes after it have meaning. All the zeroes in life are meaningless unless
God's Kingdom is first.
But put God's Kingdom first and you'll find that
not only do you have ultimate purpose and meaning
in life, but even the small things take on significance.
You know I come from a long line of preachers of the gospel, five generations on my father's
side. It all started with my great, great grandfather
August Kolenda.
One day as I was looking at the family tree it suddenly
occurred to me that we know virtually nothing about
anybody that came in the generations before great, great grandpa August.
We know a lot about him. We know a lot about the succeeding generations
of preachers of the gospel but before him we
know almost nothing about those ancestors. It's as though before Jesus came into my family,
the Kolenda family, nothing really mattered. The stories, the struggles, the victories,
the details of their lives, they just don't matter to
anyone. Before Jesus came into my family everything
was meaningless and worthless just a bunch of
zeroes. But that night when my great, great grandpa
August heard beautiful music coming from inside a
church. He went in, he sat down on the back row.
He heard the gospel and he made a decision for
the first time, to live for God's Kingdom. Suddenly something of value entered into our
family. In front of all those meaningless zeroes,
God's Kingdom because number one and since that
day all of the blessings that have been added to our family have become a wonderful heritage
that's worth more to me than great riches. Careers, life partners, finances and so on.
These things should never be our chief focus. All of these things will be sorted out and
added to us.
As Jesus said as we keep the kingdom of God as our primary concern.
And what we're talking about now, I want you to understand, seeking God's Kingdom is not
only relevant in the context of highly spiritual ministry issues.
Jesus said that if we seek the Kingdom first, then all these things will be added to us.
This is one of the most powerful secrets that I
know of to discovering God's will for your life.
If you will set your sights on His Kingdom and make
that your priority. As you move toward it, everything else that
you need will automatically be provided.