Daily Divine "Coincidence"

It seems that God has once again been particularly insistent on making His will known - and the best way to do that in my case (I tend to be skeptical at the very least, and cluelessly dense for the most part) is to bombard me with confirmations and reassurances that are dead-on. No beating around the bush or ambivalent messages, but straight-to-the-point, unmistakable declarations through both His Word and my world's circumstances. Just yesterday I had a couple of long telephone conversations with a fellow servant in the vineyard, whom I first looked up to when starting this part of my journey in His service. The heart of our discussion was Matthew 6:33, the anchor which tethers us to this commitment and keeps us from being swept away by the fickle tides of distractions and losing our way. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness..."

Oswald Chambers, whom I have not read so devotedly since the last time I used his devotional two years ago, is again God's sounding board. This time I'm reading My Utmost... online, and just as I clicked on today's date, I had a sense that the Lord would once again be confirming something - anything - through Ozzie. And, of course, He did. Amazing, indeed.

May 21
Having God’s "Unreasonable" Faith

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you
—Matthew 6:33

When we look at these words of Jesus, we immediately find them to be the most revolutionary that human ears have ever heard. ". . . seek first the kingdom of God . . . ." Even the most spiritually-minded of us argue the exact opposite, saying, "But I must live; I must make a certain amount of 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 going to take care of ourselves to live. Jesus reversed the order by telling us to get the right relationship with God first, maintaining it as the primary concern of our lives, and never to place our concern on taking care of the other things of life.

". . . do not worry about your life . . ." ( Matthew 6:25 ). Our Lord pointed out that from His standpoint it is absolutely unreasonable for us to be anxious, worrying about how we will live. Jesus did not say that the person who takes no thought for anything in his life is blessed— no, that person is a fool. But Jesus did teach that His disciple must make his relationship with God the dominating focus of his life, and to be cautiously carefree about everything else in comparison to that. In essence, Jesus was saying, "Don’t make food and drink the controlling factor of your life, but be focused absolutely on God." Some people are careless about what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, having no business looking the way they do; they are careless with their earthly matters, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the greatest concern of life is to place our relationship with God first, and everything else second.

It is one of the most difficult, yet critical, disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into absolute harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.

I'm off to seek His Kingdom. Good morning, my Savior!