Seeking Him First in 2019!

"Don’t seek opportunity, seek God. If you seek God, opportunity will seek you."
Dr. Mark Batterson
Pastor of National Community Church

Dr. Mark Batterson tweeted the quote above along with a link to a sermon about a month ago. To be honest I never watched the sermon but the quote stuck with me. As I prayed over it I felt that this quote is God's word for me for 2019. 

It is easy to get caught up looking for an opportunity. We can even feel like it is a spiritual search because we are looking for an "opportunity for God to use us", but God wants us to seek Him first. 

"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, 

and all these things shall be added to you."

Matthew 6:33

Reading this passage in context it is clear that the "these things" Jesus is referring to are our material needs (i.e. food, water, shelter). However, often that is what is behind our search for an opportunity. I would love an opportunity to better provide for my family without having to work as much as I do and I believe God is going to bring that opportunity to me. However, God wants me to seek Him first, to seek His kingdom. 

If you are a regular reader of my blog you may notice a recurring theme in my most recent posts. This is not on purpose but is simply how God has been leading me over the past few months and I believe it isn't a theme that is only for me but also for you, my reader. In November I wrote a post titled Seeking God Himself, in which I wrote how God impressed on my heart that morning the need to ask for more of Him rather than for other things and then for Christmas I wrote about how the true meaning behind Christmas is the bringing of God's kingdom on this earth and that we should seek after, and help establish that kingdom through our actions. 

This is of course not an entirely new theme either. Back in 2015 I wrote a post entitled, Four Ways We Should Seek the Kingdom First!, in which I outlined four areas of life that we should be practically applying this focus; prayer, finances, service, and evangelism. 

Sometimes we look for an elaborate word for the new year or we try to set complicated goals and there is a time and place for those things but in 2019 I challenge to make it simple. Let's go back to the basics of seeking Him and His kingdom and let everything else fall into place. As we pursue Him first in our prayers, our finances, our service, and our acts of evangelism we will automatically find opportunities seekign us out, we will find that our needs are provided for without the stress, and we will find that we are making a difference in our world without even having to try.