OUR DESIRES WILL CHANGE

The journey of seeking the Kingdom of God isn’t a label, it’s an ongoing process towards a destination.

Jesus tells us to seek God’s Kingdom first (above all else) and our desires will be added to us (Matthew 6:33). In other words, once we’ve established God’s Kingdom as our destination (our first priority), what we desire will change; our attention and focus will drift more and more towards seeking out people and resources that help us stay on the narrow path which leads to eternal life. Our degree of intrigue in the ways of the world will wane because we’ll be centering ourselves on Christ’s teachings, His character and influences, and we’ll be motivated by the movement of the Holy Spirit in us as we grow stronger in faith.

UNABLE TO SERVE TWO GODS

But let’s slow down a moment. In order to desire God’s Kingdom, we must put away our desires for the world. For many of us, we’ve been wanting and pursuing the ways of the world for a long, long time. We can’t possibly expect to just drop everything and be able to sprint on our own two feet down the narrow gate, can we?

It’s important to understand this: We are practically, spiritually, and emotionally incapable of tackling a worldly identity while clinging to Christ as Lord. We can only cling to one God, and if it’s not the biblical God, then it’s a god that leads us astray.

UNABLE TO TURN AROUND WITHOUT SEEING THE OBVIOUS

If we’re unwilling to see how our desires are influenced by the ways of the world, then we’ll be unable to take even the first step of being humbled and honest in admitting we’ve been wanting and striving towards the wrong destination all this time. If we won’t be humbled, then we’ll be unable to turn around and surrender the rest of our lives to following Jesus’ example.

Following Jesus requires a particular heart posture and mindset to be able to let go of what is holding us back from truly living in the spirit, and not the flesh.

OPPOSITE MENTALITIES WITH ENDLESS RIPPLES

That decision (the world, or Jesus as Lord) is one that can be made in an instant, but the actual lifestyle changes may take more time as we mature into discernment. By listening to the Holy Spirit, we’ll be directed more towards certain people, places, and things, and away from others. We have to learn to see that the mindset of the Kingdom of God is opposite of the mentality of this world, and the implications of that opposition have repercussions that ripple endlessly in either direction as we make our choices.

FIGHTING TOOTH AND NAIL FOR YOUR SOUL

This world is corrupt and full of sin. There is evil behind the darkness—principalities of the unseen world at work every moment of every day, enacting plans intended to steal our soul due to our lack of knowledge, or to spiritual immaturity and a resolute attitude towards serving our flesh and not the God of our spirit.

Let me be frank here. Unless we’re fighting tooth and nail (spiritually-speaking) in the spiritual war taking place—a war, in fact, aimed at trapping our souls and deceiving us from seeking the light of Christ—we not only risk losing the war, but we’ll remain blind and stuck in the carnality and empty finiteness that this world promises to give us but never promises to let us keep.

DROP EVERYTHING AND LET THE DEAD BURY THE DEAD

What does it mean to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, anyways? Those seem like big theological words, but what are they telling us about what to do?

Jesus, whenever He called a disciple, always required that they drop everything in order to follow Him. One man (though not a disciple) even asked to go to bury his father before following Jesus, and Jesus told him to let the dead bury the dead (Luke 9:60). It might sound harsh, but Jesus was boldly claiming that in order to follow Him, we must be willing and ready to leave the things of this world behind, as well as those who obstinately cling to this world and not to Him.

DENY YOURSELF, PICK UP YOUR CROSS, AND FOLLOW ME

Since He is the Source of life, to desire to cling to anything other than Him is to refuse to cling to life, and to cling to death instead.

There isn’t any ambiguity with what Jesus is describing about Himself spiritually when He speaks of the Kingdom: to seek the Kingdom of God is to desire the God of that Kingdom; in order to desire the biblical God, we must deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow the ways of Jesus (Matthew 16:24). His are the ways of unconditional love, sacrifice, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, and boldly resisting the enemy—even the enemy of our fleshly, situational desires.

FOCUSED ON GLORIFYING GOD

When we accept Jesus as Lord, and not just the Christian label, we declare spiritual power and authority over our lives that comes from the power of Christ through the Holy Spirit. This is Kingdom-thinking and Kingdom-living. We cannot come into the Kingdom without thinking like citizens of the Kingdom, and citizens of the Kingdom aren’t thinking about glorifying life on earth. We’re focused on glorifying God, working towards maturity of faith, and gravitating away from investing in anything and anyone who might mislead us back towards worldliness; the very spirit of those who don’t place their trust in Jesus.

We seek out who and what will help us to become more like Jesus, and we grow to spiritually discern in advance what will deter us from His ways, so we can avoid those detours and stay the course.

NO BEATING AROUND ANY BUSH

Jesus wasn’t beating around any bush when He answered the Pharisees who questioned His authority. If Jesus’ way of discipling and teaching was so offensive that the religious leaders of that time wanted Him dead out of jealousy, then our faith can’t beat around any bush about the power of the Holy Spirit moving in our lives.

By seeking the Kingdom of God, we expose the attempts of the devil to sway us back to our old lives (apart from Christ), and we proclaim victory over sin in the name of Jesus by resisting temptation, fleeing evil, and doing the works of our faith as convicted in us through the Holy Spirit.

HARD, BIBLICAL TRUTH

When any church body tries to make room for unbiblical ideologies to fit into the collective church body, we’re allowing Satan to laugh at so-called Christians for not taking God seriously. Any church or pastor/priest/bishop/pope who allows anything unbiblical within the church body is rejecting God’s ultimate authority, and not seeking the Kingdom of God; rather, they’re seeking the Kingdom of the ideology of an evolving spiritually-misguided world.

WHAT TO AVOID TO BE SEEKING GOD’S KINGDOM

Here’s how we know when we’re seeking the Kingdom of God.

If the Kingdom of God is our destination by intention, and by choice, then everything else in our lives becomes a resource—or a poison—to that end goal. When we want God’s Kingdom present in our lives, there are things we move closer to, and other things we pull further back from.

We stop listening to music which counters God’s commands or teachings. We steer away from watching particular movies (or listening to certain music, or reading specific books, or—fill in the blank) that causes us anxiety, panic, worry, or irreverential fear over matters by betraying our attention away from our worship, love, and trust of God. Pushing deeper yet, we’re not spending time around people who intentionally and willingly engage in anti-biblical behavior, activities, or habits.

CAUTION WITH “PEACEFUL” BUT OBSTINATELY CLOSED HEARTS

We would even do well to discern and be mindful over how others think “spiritually“; whether their spiritual operating system involves trusting in anything other than God.

If others are unwilling to see their own spiritual blindness and wholeheartedly keep to a belief system that could send flood waters over our fire for Jesus, it is wise to keep a distance until they have realized through witnessing our faith that their spirituality is toxic, incomplete, and misled, and come to desire Jesus for themselves.

Our purpose for all these boundaries is to avoid falling out of Kingdom-based living in order to stay focused on our relationship with God remaining strong and foundational.

THE IDENTITY THAT THE WORLD PREACHES AT US

To seek the Kingdom of God first, we make the necessary choices in every day life that lead to us becoming more like Christ, and less like the self the world teaches us to be like (Ephesians 4:22-24).

The identity the world tries to teach us to have is that we are God, that we should take control of our lives and not let anyone impose their ideologies on the definition of ourselves that we’d prefer to believe. The world tells us we should be able to have whatever we want and encourage us to be activists in fighting to achieve our preference-based lives.

The world teaches that identity, morality, and gender are all cultural-based issues and not fundamental, objective aspects to reality that we need to take seriously. The world teaches us that desire is more important than morality; that morality is relative and that the way we define ourselves is the truth—and not that the truth beyond every person’s individualistic, subjective translation of objective truth according to their own worldview is actually the truth we’re comparing to when we argue over morality.

TRANSITIONING INTO THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST IN US

These are all lies! They aren’t biblical. What’s worse, they lead to spiritual death while on earth, and they lead to the second death after this life is over if we have not repented and turned towards the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ with humility and a contrite heart (Psalm 51:17).

To become more like Christ, we transition into being more like the character God had in mind when He first created us (Jeremiah 1:5), and we transition out of the chaos of earthly labels, prejudices and mindsets that have no bearing or significance in Heaven.

A PICTURE OF SEEKING THE KINGDOM OF GOD HERE ON EARTH

This is what seeking the Kingdom of God looks like: Jesus Christ working through us through the power, grace, and integrity of the Holy Spirit.

When we listen to the conviction of the Holy Spirit inside of us, we can feel the power and authority surging through our spirit because the faith in our heart isn’t from us, it’s from the grace of God working in us—meaning—God’s Spirit is in us, emanating spiritual power and passionately calling to us to do what only He could do through us for the world.

God wants the world to know Him, and He’s working through faithful Christ-followers to show that faith is real; that some Christ-followers actually take their relationship with Jesus Christ seriously. God reveals to those who are ready and seeking, that the Christian desire is for God’s glory, love, mercy, and peace to be known by all who have have been led astray, or have been cast aside, that all would repent and know God in Christ, personally, for eternity.

OUR EVERY BREATH IS LEADING TO ETERNITY

That is the Spirit of the Kingdom of God at work in every person who’s dedicated their repented lives to finding themselves in the presence of God when they physically pass away here.

This life is just the first breath, every breath beyond here is for forever! This is why we live here like every day is our last, because for one, it could be (James 4:14)! And two, we’re living in the anticipation and the hope that what we do here is just a ripple-starter in the waters beyond space and time, that what we do here only starts here and follows us into eternity.

LIVING WITHIN A KINGDOM-BASED MINDSET

This mentality leads us not to live today like it’s any other day, but to live under the spiritual awareness that we could be seeing the end of this world as we know it—tonight, we could be seeing God face-to-face for the first time. When we live this way, we live more intentionally, which is to say, we live within a Kingdom-based mindset because we’re fixated on finding the Kingdom of God coming alive more and more in us each and every day we find ourselves gifted with the blessing of another breath in our lungs to glorify God; to know Him, and to help others to know Him, too.

PRAY FOR A SOFTENED HEART

That’s what Christianity is, and that’s what it means to seek God’s Kingdom first. All our previous desires become new desires to keep Jesus at the forefront (Ezekiel 36:26), to keep the faith in our hearts strong, and to let the parts of our lives that will die anyway, die as they are. Let the dead bury the dead. Let those who don’t want Jesus, either witness Him in our lives and repent of their own sinful ways, or, adhere to continually praying they have a softened heart for the Lord God before it’s too late for them to choose differently.

INVITED UNTIL OUR LAST BREATH

The Kingdom of God is only inviting for those of us who come to recognize our faulty way of thinking and living leads to a lack of truly understanding the purpose of our existence. We misconstrue the loopholes in our beliefs and put them aside rather than dig as deep as we can for clarity. Tragically, for many of us, the unending suffering of not placing our faith in Jesus wins over those who stop knocking at the door, and who stop asking to receive (Matthew 7:7).

For us to have God’s Truth presented to us and refuse it is to accept the invitation of the devil to be imprisoned in the lake of fire, tormented day and night for all eternity (Revelation 21:8); absolute separation from God—the complete opposite experience of God’s Kingdom. He will never make us choose His eternal presence, but He will invite us to choose Him until our last breath, and then it’s too late.

ENTICED BY THE LIES OF THE UNSEEN REALM

Seek first the Kingdom, and let us not listen to the lies, deceptions, or manipulations of the devil. He is in the details! He’s prowling around like a lion looking for someone to devour; don’t be the one who gets enticed by the lies of the unseen realm (1 Peter 5:8).

All of the devil’s deceptions lead to a fiery place of agony where there is no rest, water, compassion, or companionship. There is no God where the lies of this world would lead us to. Only darkness and isolation.

SUFFER THE LOSS OF THE LIES OF THE ‘SELF’

The Kingdom of God is only for those who want to leave this life behind and discover their truest self in the passions of Christ in us. Living from a Kingdom-based mindset leads us to only suffer the “loss” of the lies of what our ‘self’ wants in this life. We would do well to listen to and embrace the Truth of the Holy Spirit and become a child of the living God.

We would see through the lies of this world by listening to God’s voice and obeying the instructions of living a righteous life according to the eyes of God in the Bible. We would know Jesus through faith and deny ourselves as the new meditation of our hearts (Psalm 19:14).

WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

We would do well to leave ideals of this life beyond and fix our eyes on the glory of God in heaven in the midst of such strife here on earth. We would do well to say no to empty promises and cling to the One who feeds us in such a way that we would never be hungry again (John 6:35).

Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So… what are we waiting for?

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