Divine Reasonings Of Faith

[Chad]

Divine Reasonings Of Faith
Oswald Chambers

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Matthew 6:33

Immediately we look at these words of Jesus, we find them the most revolutionary statement human ears ever listened to. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." We argue in exactly the opposite way, even the most spiritually-minded of us - "But I must live; I must make so much money; I must be clothed; I must be fed." The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God, but how we are to fit ourselves to live. Jesus reverses the order: Get rightly related to God first, maintain that as the great care of your life, and never put the concern of your care on the other things.

"Take no thought for your life. . . ." Our Lord points out the utter unreasonableness from His standpoint of being so anxious over the means of living. Jesus is not saying that the man who takes thought for nothing is blessed - that man is a fool. Jesus taught that a disciple has to make his relationship to God the dominating concentration of his life, and to be carefully careless about every thing else in comparison to that. Jesus is saying - "Don't make the ruling factor of your life what you shall eat and what you shall drink, but be concentrated absolutely on God." Some people are careless over what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, and they look as they have no business to look; they are careless about their earthly affairs, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the great care of the life is to put the relationship to God first, and everything else second.

It is one of the severest disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.

 

[SpiritLedEd]

Great post, Chad. I'm living proof that God meets the needs of those who put Him first. That doesn't mean that God owes some kind of reward to those who put Him first. It means that in putting Him first, we are operating closer to His level, as opposed to the worldly dog-eat-dog way of life.

When I asked the Lord Jesus to be my Lord and Savior in 1983, I was given the priceless gift of a love for His Word. Over the years, in reading the Word, hearing it preached, and coming into regular contact with Christians who were "doers of the Word and not hearers only" (see Jas 1:22), I saw God working in peoples' lives and decided that I wanted in on what He's doing.

First, I had to learn the difference between a "want" and a "need". I need good, nutricious food every day. I do not need a seven course gourmet dinner every day. I need transportation, I do not need a Cadillac. There's a proverb about "champagne taste on a beer budget". That describes my life before I came to Christ. As another saying goes, " I spent money I didn't have to buy things I didn't need to impress people I didn't like."

When my house-of-cards came tumbling down, I had to humble myself and put God's word into practice. That's when I reached out to the church and began to move in the spirit of Matthew 6:33. My lifestyle has been downsized rather drastically, but, my needs are met and I have less stress in my life and I praise God for that.

SLE