Seek, Not Look

This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture that reject fear and promote faith. It emphasizes the importance of seeking God's kingdom and righteousness first, putting Him above all else. Seeking means actively searching and acquiring, not aimlessly looking. After salvation, we must continue seeking the Lord and deepening our faith through His Word. Faith is a spiritual force that connects us to God and enables us to live a righteous life. It is through faith that we can stand in Jesus and accomplish His will. The blood of Jesus gives power to our faith. The goal is to become more like Jesus and live as children of God. Focusing on the word and putting God first brings peace and renewal to our lives. Welcome to Fear No Fear. Grace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit embrace you today. This is a series of devotions and meditations on scripture. We reject fear in any and all forms. Fear is a spiritual force, the currency of darkness and ignorance. It's what we inherited when Adam gave up his faith and Satan uses it to keep people down. His only weapon is words. If he can get you believing or looking at words of fear, he's got you. Instead, we champion faith as an allegiance to God, as a belief and trust and loyalty to the Lord God Almighty. We accept the evidence of his word as unvarnished truth, as is, just as it's written. We get close to his perfect love through the word, and perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4.18 All scripture is taken from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Visit eBible.org Matthew 6.33 But seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. This command is smack dab between the don't be anxious of verse 31 and the don't be anxious of verse 34. It's also right after that. That's what the Gentiles do. Verse of 32 The world worries. The world has anxiety. Believers are not supposed to. We're not to be worried about our needs. Verse 31 We're not to be worried about what is about to happen. Verse 34 We're to keep from worrying and stand on a spot where we can tell anxiety to flee from us. That is what today's verse is about. Removing the possibility of taking anxiety seriously by filling our minds with something else. Seeking is not something you can do by accident. You have to do it on purpose. You can look for things without knowing what you're looking for. You know that feeling. When you're in a room and you have a niggling feeling that there's something you came in for, or something you need, or maybe something someone said you needed, or they needed, and you're not quite sure what it is. That's looking. We also try and find ourselves in our twenties, buying into the myth that we don't know who we are and who we want to be as a person. But all of that is ephemeral, mysterious, and not at all focused. Seeking is completely different. To seek is a verb. It means to search for, try, to acquire, to gain, aim at, to make an attempt, and to try and discover. As an intransitive verb, it is to make a search or inquiry, to be sought, or to be lacking in that thing. None of that can be done by accident. You need to know what it is you're looking for, the basic area where it can be found, and then you actively go and do that thing with the goal of achieving it, perhaps determining not to stop until you achieve that goal. That is seeking. What does it mean to seek the kingdom of God first? It means that Yahweh and His ways become your priority in life, not your job, your education, your domicile, your spouse, your children, or the rest of your family. It does not mean neglecting, forfeiting, or abandoning those things. It simply means that they are not first. The Lord God Almighty should always be first. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight. Proverbs 3.6 Commit your deeds to Yahweh, and your plans shall succeed. Proverbs 16.3 I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. Galatians 2.20 It starts with realizing that God is in fact God, and therefore above who we are. He is the Almighty, the Merciful Lord, the Great I Am. Hear, Israel, Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is One. You shall love Yahweh, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. These words which I command you today shall be on your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. Deuteronomy 6.4-7 This is, of course, where we all start with the Lord. Once we realize who He is and what He has done for us, the love He has for us, and the way to save us that He made available to us, that is how we get saved. John 3.16-18, Romans 10.9-13, and Ephesians 2.8-10 After we are saved, we need to focus on seeking the Lord. Why do we need to seek Him after we are saved? Because in this case, seeking isn't about finding something that is lost, or unknown, or missing in action. It's about acquiring to gain and aiming for. Aiming and gaining what? The righteousness of God. That which we lost in the garden when we rebelled. In Christ, we achieve it. 2 Corinthians 5.21 But to be in Jesus, we must stand. We must abide. We are not good at that. What we as a species is good at is moving around, going with what we feel, and changing everything in our lives at a moment's notice. You see, to stay in Jesus, we have to live by faith. Habakkuk 2.4 But now, apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all those who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God sent to be an atoning sacrifice, through faith in His blood, for a demonstration of His righteousness, through the passing over of prior sins, in God's forbearance, to demonstrate His righteousness at this present time, that He might Himself be just, and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus. Romans 3.21-26 Faith is a spiritual force, not a feeling. 2 Corinthians 4.13-14 We've been given it by God. Romans 12.3 We maintain our connection to it by deepening it, strengthening it. We can only do that by hearing the Word. Romans 10.17 Jesus told us the reason why in John 6.63 It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and life. The Word is a spiritual force. Faith is a spiritual force. They are intimately connected. When we develop the faith we have been given, it penetrates all parts of our nature. Spirit, soul, body. Because the Word penetrates all parts of our nature. The Holy Spirit indwells us. 1 Corinthians 3.16 He doesn't hang out in one corner of our heart, and that's it. Jesus told us that He would be with us and in us. John 14.17 Our faith, fed by the Word, enables and equips us for the rest of our life. Yes, and for this very cause, adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in moral excellence, knowledge, and in knowledge, self-control, and in self-control, perseverance, and in perseverance, godliness, and in godliness, brotherly affection, and in brotherly affection, love. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to not be idle or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins. Therefore, brothers, be more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. 2 Peter 1.5-10 Everything relies on everything else. It builds one process upon another until we're saturated with the nature of God, until we are so much a part of Jesus, and he is such a part of us that we are the same mirror images. Now, of course, that process will not be completed until we are with him in heaven, but the journey toward that is what we are on. That's why everything not from faith, whether we're thinking it, doing it, speaking it, or witnessing it in the world around us, is sin. It's because faith is the heir of the kingdom. Faith is that which is what we are to use to drive our words, our thoughts, and our deeds. It is the faith that we use to function. The blood of Jesus is the power behind our faith. Hebrews 13.12 You can think of it as the car that faith fuels. Without one, the other doesn't work. Without both, we cannot stand on and stay in Jesus. Without the blood giving power to our faith, we can accomplish nothing. That's a reason that outside of Jesus we are nothing, but inside Jesus we can be all that he is. John 15.4-6 Jesus completes us. Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus, make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13.20-21 For in him all the fullness of the deity dwells bodily, and in him you were made full, who was the head of all principality and power. Colossians 2.9-10 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance that doesn't fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Peter 1.3-5 We have been given a precious gift, the grace to receive his faith, the faith to receive his blood, and the word to strengthen our faith so that our whole lives can be renewed as we strive to become more and more like he who lives within us, to be children of God, children of obedience. 1 Peter 1.13-16 We can't do that when we're focusing on the way we used to be, in the flesh us. We can only do that when we are focusing on the word, on ourselves as new creations. 2 Corinthians 5.16-17 How do we do that? Seeking the kingdom of God first, before anything else at all. Luke 14.26-33 When God is first, when we are submitting to him, not pridefully forced, but humbly broken, then we will have our minds stayed on him. That brings us peace, because the Lord places it on us. Isaiah 26.3 It is a gift of Jesus, imparted to our spirits. John 14.27 It will rule our hearts when we take every single thing and examine it with prayer and thanksgiving to the Lord. Colossians 3.15 Philippines 4.6 It becomes a proactive thing that we walk in. And if we are in peace, how can we be anxious? How can we choose to be concerned about things when we are told and asked to cast our cares on Jesus? To let him take care of the situations while we concern ourselves only with being obedient to his guidance. Psalm 143.10 God doesn't want us to be slaves to feelings that are undependable and focused and founded on the whims of the input of our senses. God doesn't want us to be slaves to the world and its value system. God doesn't want us to be slaves to lies and failings. Jesus therefore said to them again, Most certainly I tell you, I am the sheep's door. All who came before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep didn't listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved and will go in and go out and will find pasture. The thief only comes to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and may have it abundantly. John 10.7-10 Life abundantly is not less of life, less of entertainment, less of enjoyment, less of pleasure, less of love, less of emotions. It is more. More life, more fulfilling, more pleasurable, more intense, more, more, more. The difference is that the abundant life Yahweh Almighty provides is good. It is pure and righteous and better than anything we can imagine. Isaiah 55.8 Forsake the foolishness of humanity. 1 Corinthians 3.19 Dwell instead on the things of the Lord. Joshua 1.8 Put the Lord first. Seek Him with intent every time you open your heart to prayer and the Bible to read. You will never regret it and it will allow you to shake off anxiety, worry and all fears babies like a snake shedding its skin. It will allow you to enjoy the life Jesus has for you in true peace and complete abundance. Our daily affirmation of God's love is 1 Corinthians 3.5-7 Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. World English Bible There is something intensely comforting about a God who does not leave everything to us. Our work, our struggles, our efforts. Because let's face it, we're terrible caretakers. We can't rule our tongues. James 3.7-10 We're unfaithful, but He is not. 2 Timothy 2.13-15 We struggle to keep it together pretty much all the time. Job 14.14 God doesn't leave it up to us. He sent His Son to save us. John 3.16-18 His grace abounds to us. Romans 5.20 He calls us to do things, blesses us in the work we do, but He takes care of the growth and harvest. He doesn't leave it to us. That is huge. In a world in which performance and competence is pretty much how we function, the Lord takes a different line. If we will be obedient, no matter how bad we hash it up or how good we manage it, He will give the increase on it. He will take it over the finish line. Like with our salvation, it's not works that get us into God's good graces. Ephesians 2.8-10 Works do not give us gold stars. Romans 9.16 Obedience in faith. Romans 1.5 Walking humble before Him. James 4.10 That is what makes it to the finish line. That is the challenge. And He corrects our course and helps us with that too. Proverbs 3.12-22 What a great merciful God we serve. How He loves us. As we close, remember that you have birth. You are precious and valuable. Declare this. Today, God loves that I, now you, fill in the blank. Was it a meal you made? A smile you gave? Did you get out of bed? Read? Put on socks? There's no wrong answers here. There is no end to God's love and no end to the things about you that He loves each and every day. Pick one. And remember, the Lord loves you just because you're you. 1 John 4.9-10 tells us, By this, God's love was revealed in us that God has sent His only-born Son into the world that we might live through Him. And this is love. Not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. His perfect love turned away God's wrath because of sin. And it casts out our fear too. See verses 18 and 19. We love because He first loved us. He just loves us. He can't get enough of us. And that is wonderful. See you next time.