THE KINGDOM OF GOD

"But seek first His kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well."  - Mt. 6:33.  

These words of Jesus are so simple and attractive, yet very difficult to live out.  Where does a person  begin to find "His Kingdom" and does one start seeking after it?

Jesus knew his disciples, both then and now, would struggle with this question and he sought to answer it  in the 13th chapter of Luke.  He begins by asking, "What is the kingdom of God like? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of floor until it worked all the way through."  (Luke 13:20-21).

Baking bread was familiar to everyone in Jesus' time.  People in that time understood the effort required to kneed yeast through a large ball of dough and they knew well the visual transformation that takes place when yeast takes action and bread begins to rise.  This visual picture is lost of some of us today.

Perhaps a modern picture, more familiar to us all, is the spread of cancer in the human body.  Few words carry as heavy an impact in our society as cancer does today.  It is a truly frightening condition that has touched each of us in some way, shape or form.  Hence, we are all too familiar with the slow, hidden transformation that can take place inside a person's body, and the drastic visual changes that cancer can have on the way a person looks or acts.   Cancer of any kind, be it of the skin or brain, is the result of repetitive insults and invasions to our cells causing them to become altered and grow in abnormal ways.  These altered cells, if left unattended, can spread to other organs in the body unleashing a domino effect of destruction that cannot be stopped despite even the best modern day medicine has to offer.  

In the same way that bread with yeast is completely different from bread without, and that cells with cancer behave very differently than cells without, a human life seeking after the kingdom of God and one seeking after anything else look completely different.

Paul writes in Romans 7:21-25, "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me prisoner to the law of sin at work within my member.  What a wretched man I am!"

Seeking the kingdom of God is so difficult because of the selfishness that lives in us all.  Like bread requiring yeast to be pounded into it through and through or a human cell that can only be changes by repetitive insult and injury, you and I are in need of a forceful change at the deepest level.  This forceful change can only come by way of God's word which is "living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12).  Only by making ourselves vulnerable to God's word over and over again, by allowing it to pound away at the depths of who we are, allowing ourselves to be broken and changed, do we stand any chance at seeking the kingdom of God.

However when change begins to happen, when the selfishness that we like to live by is replaced by a spirit of service and a desire to give away one's life instead of keep it, that is God's kingdom.  In the same way that bread with yeast rises, our lives will start to look different.  The alterations in our priorities and values will spread like cancer through out bodies, causing our arms and legs to take action in service to others.  Our eyes will be changed as we look for ways to serve others rather than be served.  Our minds will be changed so that we look out not for our own interests but instead for the interests of others.  Living out the kingdom of God comes quite naturally once we start seeking it and the seeking begins by daily placing ourselves before God's word.