CONCERT OF PRAYER

Pray Week 875

 “Seek First His Righteousness”

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness… (Matthew 6:33)

Consider an alternative paradigm to that of the linear, top to bottom, first things first priority list we all tend to live by. Consider your life to be encircled by organic and dynamic relationship contexts rather than a series of to-do tasks that need to be performed. God is always first in this paradigm because He is at the center of your life and when you seek first His Kingdom and Righteousness, He is at the very core of your being. Seeking first begins with accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. It begins with a personal relationship with Him. In placing Him on the central ‘throne’ of our life we seek first His kingdom and we yield to His authority and rule as we serve Him and others in His Name. It is the Righteousness of Jesus Christ that permeates and works through our relationship layer called ‘self’ and touches the lives of people in all other surrounding relationship contexts of work, church, government, family, and world.

What exactly is ‘righteousness’? Righteousness deals with our actions that are done in accordance with divine or moral law. So why seek after ‘His’ righteousness and not our own? After all, there are many ‘good people’ doing ‘good things’ in life that do not accept Jesus Christ. They have something or someone else on the ‘throne’ of their life but for all intents and purposes they appear to be righteous. To answer that question we need only look to God’s Word. We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. (Isaiah 64:6)

We are all born into a sinful nature and all the good and righteous things we do remain as dirty rags in God’s sight. Paul lamented this fact in his letter to the Romans. ‘O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?’(Romans 7:24) Paul answered his own rhetorical question in the following verse declaring: ‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ Jesus will deliver us from our body of death when we accept Him as our Lord and allow Him to establish His kingdom in our heart. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Practically speaking, to seek first after God’s righteousness is to devotedly spend time studying God’s Word because Scripture is useful for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16). In addition, to seek His righteousness means to obey His commands. This requires being sensitive to the leading of His Holy Spirit who convicts us concerning righteousness (John 16:8)

In summary, if the priority of your life is to ‘get to heaven’ by being the best moral person you can be, you have missed the mark. The only righteousness that God will accept on the last day is the righteousness of Jesus Christ and Jesus’ righteousness is freely and graciously imparted to us when we accept Him as our Lord and Savior.

May you decide today the priority focus of your life – what you will seek after first. May you choose to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and enjoy the peace, comfort, and joy that stems from an intimate relationship with your Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ. May you yield to the Holy Spirit and allow the righteousness of Jesus to be manifested in all your relationships to the glory and praise of His Name.