Seek First His Kingdom

But seek ye first His Kingdom, and all these things shall be added unto you. Luke 12:31

Ever wonder just what the heck this verse means? How exactly do we seek the Kingdom? Firstly, by the preceding verses in Luke chapter 12, we see that by 'these things' God is referring to our food and clothing, our basic wants and needs. He is guiding us not to worry about how we will get these things, as worry produces nothing good. He is telling us that He will provide these things, that it is His pleasure to provide us these things, if only we will focus on Him instead of on 'them things'.

It is our duty and privilege to seek His Kingdom, which means to obey His word, do good works, love our neighbors.

Lately whenever I've prayed for guidance, all I've received in way of answer is the above verse. Frankly, it was getting annoying. But then, my 'neighbor' was in need of car repairs. Though poor and in need of food and clothing, I took my tithe money and my time and fixed his car. Suddenly a few days later, I receive two separate unexpected payments!

Luke 12:31 in action. Yeah boy! God is good, God is great. It can be scary to set aside our earthly concerns, but when we seek first His Kingdom, God will tend to our needs, better than we ever could.

Trust Him.

The Bible on Love

'LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF' Galatians 5:14

That's the Bible in a nutshell, people.

We hear this verse, but do we really appreciate it? Why doesn't it say Love your neighbor as your spouse, or child, or as you love God? It advocates loving your neighbor as yourself because the highest form of human love is the love of self. Our love for others may wane, we may someday decide we don't love our mate after all, but we will always fight tooth and nail for ourselves, because at the end of the day--admit it, you know it's true--you love yourself. Think about it. After all, this is the kind of love God advocates for our fellow man(kind).

The Bible on Hatred

My father ran into a hard verse that bothered him, and asked what it could mean. Here it is: 'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father, wife, and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple.' Luke 14:26-27

A hard verse indeed. My Apologetics study Bible explains it this way: Jesus' point was not that all who follow him must sever all ties with family relations, but rather that nothing, not even family, should be allowed to keep one from discipleship.' We need to understand that as our Creator and Savior, God has the right to demand that He come first in our lives.

Again: AS GOD, HE HAS THE RIGHT

The Word is summed up in this command, that we love our neighbor as ourself, Galatians 5:14

'So' the agnostic asks, 'we shouldn't hate our family?'

That's not what Jesus was implying. He never advocates the hatred of others, but only the hatred of sin. In the Luke verse, Jesus' statement was intentionally shocking to drive home His point that God must be put first, even before family, that we must become His disciples. We can only do this if we obey His word, which advocates love, even love of our enemies.By using potent challenging language, Jesus made clear His design not that we hate each other, but that everyone, even ourselves, must come second to Him. HE HAS THE RIGHT