Make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.

This stood out to me like never before last year when I read Mathew 6:33 in a different translation than usual. This verse has always been my life verse:

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.“
Matthew 6:33 NIV

But when I read it this way I saw it in a new light.

“and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.” Matthew 6:33 NLT

It was the height of the pandemic. Our concerns each day had certainly shifted to new things. We were concerned about numbers, statistics, vaccines, masks, the culture wars, who was “right”, and who was “wrong.”

And yet, here I was hit like a ton of bricks.

When the Kingdom of God is your primary concern, all else becomes secondary to that end. How I behave. My attitude. My actions. How I react during a pandemic. How I react to the culture. How I respond to each moment.

The choices I make each day should reflect the Kingdom of God as my primary concern.

This past weekend I had the privilege to speak at the Teach Them Diligently Homeschool Convention in Nashville, TN. I ministered to these families, many of them feeling overwhelmed or concerned for so many things– Are they doing enough in their homeschool? What math curriculum should they choose? Will they ruin their children?

I reminded them that the Kingdom of God is their primary concern. Not a math curriculum. Not a college acceptance. Not a test score.

Now certainly the Kingdom can be advanced through using those things. But I fear many of us are making our homeschools our primary concern. Or our health. Or what we do each day. Or the future. We are so concerned about the future, but not so much about eternity, souls, or the Kingdom.

Because we focus on ourselves and what we can and can not do. We focus on success in the world. We build and build for the here and now.

Yet, when the Kingdom is our primary concern, it is the goal by which we will then operate and handle everything else. It isn’t that math isn’t a concern, or test scores, or a pandemic. But when we live out Matthew 6:33, we recognize that the Kingdom will be accomplished through those things as tools, not the other way around. Those accomplishments are not our end. They are simply a means to an end.

Paul, while imprisoned never lost sight of the Kingdom of God and advancing the Gospel. In jail, He praised. In chains, He ministered. He spoke the truth. He didn’t focus on the circumstance or even see those circumstances as a hindrance. Because He was laser-focused on the end. Building the Kingdom of God. If our concerns of the day are on anything else, it is impossible to wholeheartedly follow God. We will be divided in our hearts.

We, humans, tend to build our own little kingdoms. And those become our primary concern. We seek after the ways of the world. The things of today. We worry and fret over all the details, in light of our flesh. Not in light of the Kingdom.

Each day ask yourself, what are my choices doing to advance the Kingdom? Is my homeschool advancing the Kingdom or my own little kingdom? Is my family advancing the Kingdom? Are the choices I am making advancing the Kingdom?

Don’t spend your life building a kingdom that won’t last. Make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.

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