“But Seek First His Kingdom and all His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well” - Mathew 6: 33 NIV
A new year is all about promises, resolutions, wishes and hope for a better year ahead and a more enriching life with God. So how do we achieve it ?
“Give God the first priority” is a statement most of us have heard since we were young and have become super bored of- but the Bible says that when we seek God first (not second, third or at the end of the day) everything else we need will be given to us and we need not worry or run after anything.
This New Year we urge you to:
Prioritise Knowing Your God
Life is filled with worries and challenging situations. Just like the unexpected storm that the disciples faced on the Sea of Galilee or the great number of guests that Martha had to serve we unconsciously allow these circumstances in our life to distract us from what should be our one goal of seeking his kingdom and knowing his truth through the Word of God. As followers of Christ it can be surprising the kind of distractions we face. Our families, our spouse and children, our careers, our health, our fears, our ambitions are all forms of distraction that keep us away from prioritising God in our life. Everyday like our Body requires food to be healthy, our soul requires nourishment as well. It is truly not hard to spend thirty minutes everyday just sitting at God’s feet, reading and giving the Holy Spirit space to teach us and reveal the mysteries of His Word.
Prioritise Giving God the Best
As in the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible, we encounter many instances where we bring a portion of our life to God, or we include God in some areas of our life and never the whole. We as humans love control and we love returns. God doesn’t operate like that because he sees our heart. If we love God deeply, we will give the best of our time, our money, our work, our talents and even our family time back to God. Abel brought the best of everything, because he had a deep and meaningful relationship with God. What we give God, reveals what’s in our heart.
Let us give the best to God not because he asked us to but because we want to.
Prioritising God to Shape Your Character
There is a tendency nowadays to live life driven by culture rather than driven by God. Many lives are religion based and not Word based. This year, let's choose to study the Word in order to build our character, to learn how to react to situations, to invest into relationships and to speak the right words to people. Let’s not define our lives based on human understanding or the popular culture but let’s be deep rooted in the Word of God and allow it to shape our character. Being Christ-like in character can never be achieved in our own strength since we are human and are likely to fail many times. On the other hand when we ask the Holy Spirit for help he can grow us into his likeness and God can use us in ways we would never have imagined.
“Belief overflows to behaviour. First we need to change what we believe. when we truly change what we believe, we’ll gladly change how we behave.” ~ Craig Groschel
Contributed by Rachel Merwin
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