Seek Ye First The Kingdom (325) - November 22 2025

This week we talk about seeking first the Kingdom of God. Far too often when we think about success, it is about money, power, cars, and an attractive person. 

Success in God's Kingdom has nothing to do with these things. Many forget about Jesus and what He died for. We must remember Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Jesus has nothing to do with the material things of the world. When you put Jesus first, then the things of the Lord become priority instead. It then is no longer about fleshly desires.

This program covers the following Scriptures from the Amplified Classic version (AMPC): Hebrews 10:26, Matthew 19:16-22, Matthew 6:33, Matthew 6:24, Isaiah 55:6-9, Romans 12:2, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Mark 8:36-38, 2 Corinthians 4:4-6, John 1:5, John 8:12, 2 Corinthians 4:2-3.

Transcript

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hey, and welcome back to yet another episode of Touch of God. This week, we will be speaking about Seek ye first the kingdom of God. My name is Catrice. I'll be delivering the message this week. For those of you who want to follow along in the Bible, we use the Amplified Classic version. Last week on Touch of God, we gave a summary about generational curses, how many believers speak of generational curses and need to know the truth. If we are a new creation, behold, all things are new. If you have chosen this day to follow Jesus Christ and to live according to the word of God and do what it says to do, you're no longer in darkness and serving the devil. This week on Seek ye first the kingdom, we are looking at how a person can move towards breakthrough with Jesus, with the emphasis on being in a relationship with only Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Seeking the kingdom of God is the first step. If you're not seeking the kingdom of God, then you're not looking for Jesus. You're looking outside of Jesus. This week, we will be discussing the following. What must I do in order to get into the kingdom of God? How do we find the kingdom in order to seek it? What does it mean, his way of doing and being right? Why is it difficult for someone to get beyond themselves to see the kingdom of God? If a person is blind to the truth of Jesus, how can they be able to see receiving Jesus, the light of this world? So let's start with what must I do in order to get into the kingdom of God? Before we go into explanation of the kingdom of God, have an understanding of what we are trying to do. Think of the kingdom of God like a door that needs to be open. If you were playing a video game and you need to have understanding of why you want to access the door, you want to get information. You would need to be prepared to accept the terms of getting through that door. You would need to agree to the rules of the new place you want to gain freedom in. If you don't agree to the rules, you will not get into that gate and the game would say access denied. Well, this is the same thing as the kingdom of God. In order to gain access to God's kingdom, come prepared to believe that God exists and is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him. You must know and understand that in the kingdom of God, Jesus is Lord over everything. Before crossing through to the kingdom, you are leaving your thoughts, your wants, your needs behind. It is no longer you who live, but now Jesus is the Lord over all in this kingdom. You pray and take orders from Jesus. I have a Bible story. There was a rich man who asked Jesus in Matthew, teacher, what excellent and perfectly and essentially good deed must I do to possess eternal life? And he said, why do you ask me about the perfectly and essentially good? There is only one who is good, perfectly and essentially God. If you would enter into the life, you must continually keep the commandments. He said to him, what sort of commandments or which ones? And Jesus answered, you shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal and you shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and your mother and you shall love your neighbor as you do yourself. The young man said, I have observed all of these things from my youth. What still do I lack? Jesus answered him. If you would be perfect, that is have that spiritual maturity, which accompanies self sacrificing character, go and sell what you have and give to the poor and you will have riches in heaven and come be my disciple side with my party and follow me. But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, grieved and in much distress for he had great possessions. Are you willing to leave behind what you see as valuable to gain access to what Jesus sees as valuable? We should all think about this because we have to give up everything that we know as valuable outside of God's kingdom in order to gain access to his kingdom. And Jesus himself said, give to the poor, take all of those things and just give them to the poor. And he said, be my disciple, follow me in order to follow Jesus and be his disciple. This is what we have to do. How do we find the kingdom of God in order to seek it? Let's go to Matthew 6 verse 33. But seek, aim at and strive after first of all, his kingdom and his righteousness, his way of doing and being right. And then all these things taken together will be given you besides. Verse 34. So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own sufficient for each day is its own trouble. What does it mean his way of doing and being right? So when it's referring to his, it's talking about Jesus because Jesus is the one who is the way that we want to follow. So we want to do things his way. Many are searching for the rewards of being believers, but not in relationship with Jesus. It's like coming to a job and only wanting the pay, but not wanting to do the work in order to access the pay. Sadly, the desires of this world for some are desired more than seeking the Lord. In order for a generation to see God's kingdom, they have to first get beyond themselves and not be blinded by material things and fleshly desires. When a young man was asked, what are some things that young men want these days in order to feel accomplished? The answer was women, cars, and money. This is a window into the reality that they want and desire. This is the path of success and growth for some today who follow the things of this world. So this is not everyone, but this was a group of men who were asked, and this is what their answer was. Women, cars, and money. Using the same mindset of success in the kingdom of God will not work. Jesus did not die for women, cars, and money. Jesus died so that souls can be saved and paid for healing. Man's list of a blessed life is different from God's list. We cannot serve the world and God. A kingdom divided will not stand. One will rebel against the other. Matthew 6 verse 24. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise and be against the other. You cannot serve God and mammon, and mammon is deceitful riches, money, possessions, or whatever is trusted in. Every day you must choose this day whom you serve. Isaiah 55 verses 6 to 9. Seek, inquire for, and require the Lord while he may be found, claiming him by necessity and by right. Call upon him while he is here. Verse 7. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have love, pity, and mercy for him, and to our God, for he will multiply to him his abundant pardon. Verse 8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. Verse 9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts than your thoughts. Now, although this verse is from the Old Testament, we still need to have our ways and our thoughts line up with the will of God. For further information on this, you can read Romans 12 verse 2 on renewing your mind to God's perfect will. Let's look at Matthew 6 verse 33 again. But seek him and strive after, first of all, his kingdom and his righteousness, his way of doing and being right. And then all of these things taken together will be given you besides. We just talked about some things that help us to line up with God's ways. Our ways can change when we can acknowledge that we don't have the answers, when we can see our flaws and limitations, when we can see the truth about how imperfect we are, when we are willing to see the truth no matter what and realize that the truth is not in us. When we come to the end of ourselves, our ways, our thoughts, our perfections, our plans, when we remove the I, I want, I need, I desire, when we can see past ourselves, we become not full of ourselves. It is only then we can see God and we can see others as well. At this point, our cry to God becomes real, authentic, based on truth. We can't arrive at the truth if we are our own truth. That would make us our own God. Yes, it's a real reality for some. Yes, they worship at their own altar of self. Every action is something to promote themselves, feed themselves. Think about it. We live in a world that takes selfies. It could be someone else's birthday party and people are looking for the best area to take a selfie, which is a picture. This means they're looking at themselves, finding the best angle of themselves. It becomes a production to fix this, fix that, to get the right selfie picture. What clothes should be worn? What look to go for? We have all been caught up in this at times. Reality is a birthday party is a birthday party to celebrate that person, not indulging selfies with selfie sticks in front of a selfie picture station. This is something that we all have to think about because we can't give of ourselves and do things to help others if we're so focused on ourselves at all times. Let's look at 2 Timothy 3 verse 1 to 5. But understand this, that in the last days will come set in perilous times of great stress and trouble, hard to deal with and hard to bear. For people will be lovers of self and utterly self-centered lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate, greedy desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive, blasphemous, scoffing, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane. Verse 3. They will be without natural human affections, callous and inhuman, relentless, admitting of no truce or appeasement. They will be slanderers, false accusers, troublemakers, intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce haters of good. Verse 4. They will be treacherous, betrayers, rash and inflated with self-conceit. They will be lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God. For although they hold a form of piety, true religion, they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it. Their conduct belies and genuineness of their profession. Avoid all such people. Turn away from them. Let's look at Mark 8 verse 36 to 38. Verse 36. For what does it profit a man to gain the world and forfeit his life in the eternal kingdom of God? Verse 37. For what can a man give as an exchange, a compensation, a ransom in return for his blessed life in the eternal kingdom of God? For whoever is ashamed, hear a noun of me and my words. So this is Jesus's words. In this adulterous, unfaithful and preeminently sinful generation of him will the son of man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory, splendor and majesty of his father with the holy angels. Why is it difficult for someone to get beyond themselves to see the kingdom of God? Let's look at 2nd Corinthians verse 4 to 6. For the God of this world has blinded the unbelievers' minds, that they should not discern the truth, preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the gospel of the glory of Christ the Messiah, who is the image and likeness of God. For what we preach is not ourselves but Jesus as Lord and ourselves merely as your servants, slaves for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts so as to beam forth the light for the illumination of the knowledge of the majesty and of glory of God, as it is manifest in the person and is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ the Messiah. If a person is blind to the truth of Jesus, how can they be able to see the kingdom of God if the God of this world has blinded them? When someone is blind, they are in darkness. Let's look at John 1 verse 5. And the light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness has never overpowered it, put it out, or absorbed it, or appreciated it, and is unreceptive to it. So we're talking about how darkness responds to light. So we see that darkness cannot comprehend the light or overpower it or absorb it. The light is Jesus Christ. How do we know that? Let's look at John 8 verse 12. Once more, Jesus addressed the crowd. He said, I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not be walking in the dark, but will have the light, which is life. So if the God of this world has blinded unbelievers, those unbelievers who follow Jesus Christ will have the light of the world and they will not be walking in darkness, according to John 8 verse 12, but will be with the light, which is life. So if you're an unbeliever and you're walking in darkness and you're wondering why, you could be missing Jesus Christ, and that's how you'll have light and light in your life when you follow the Lord Jesus Christ. How can light be if we walk in the dark? We can't see what's around us if it's dark. If we can't see what's around us, how can we move forward and grow in life? Life is slowed to a stop when there is no light on your path to light your way. This is why we need Jesus, because money, cars, and fame can't help you when you're injured and sick. You need the Lord to direct you and light the way in your life. Amen? Without the Lord, a person is lost. If you are not in the light, you are in the darkness. So how can we receive Jesus, the light of this world? Well, let's think about it this way. When a computer or a phone needs an update, it means the old software, the old version, the old way, the old system is being replaced completely. The old process is replaced with something new. The old way must pass away before the new can take effect. If there are people still clinging to their old ways, if there are people trying to serve two religions, if there are people still trying to do witchcraft and serve Jesus, the Lord wants to bring light into your darkness. He wants you to see the life that you have come in agreement with when you're walking in darkness. Let's look at 2 Corinthians 2-3. We have renounced disgraceful ways, secret thoughts, feelings, desires, and underhandedness, the methods and the arts that men hide through shame. We refuse to deal craftily, to practice trickery and cunning, or to adulterate or handle dishonestly the word of God. But we state the truth openly, clearly, and candidly. And so we commend ourselves in the sight and presence of God to every man's conscience. Verse 3. But even if our gospel, the glad tidings, also be hidden, obscured, and covered up with a veil that hinders the knowledge of God, it is hidden only to those who are perishing and obscured, only to those who are spiritually dying and veiled, only to those who are lost. So if you're sitting here right now and you feel like that God's word and the kingdom of God is veiled in front of you, which means it's blocked, it's hidden. This verse, 2 Corinthians 2-3, is saying it's only hidden to those who are perishing. Now, when I hear those words, that will be a wake-up call to me that if I'm having trouble understanding God's word, if it's just blocked to me and I don't feel like I have access and I feel like I'm still on the path of darkness, this scripture is saying it's because people are perishing. So if you are listening to this right now and you feel like that your life has been obscured, that you're spiritually dying, that you're not walking in the things that you're supposed to be walking in, it's because you haven't received Jesus Christ. No one can make that decision for you. No one's going to force you. God's not going to force you. Believers are not going to force you. You have to want to follow Jesus Christ of your own free will. No one is going to be saved for you. You have to freely choose to do this because God is a gentleman and he wants this for you. But if you don't want this for yourself, he's not going to make you desire the kingdom of God. This world knows how to go after things when they desire it. If in the example earlier, we were talking and the young man was asked what he wanted in this world in order to be successful. And he said, women, cars, and money. This young man was working towards women, cars, and money. That's what he wanted. That's what he wanted to access. And he was working towards it, figuring out how to get it. So when a person wants something, they're going to be so hungry for it that they're going to figure out how to get access to this thing, how to circumvent situations and circumstances in order to get access to what they want. This is the same for the kingdom of God. You have to want access to the kingdom of God. And when you get to the door and Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart, you have to want to open that door and let Jesus in. And when you let Jesus in, he becomes your Lord and Savior. He becomes the Lord of your life. It's no longer about things that you have on your list. For example, with the guy who wanted women, cars, and money, when that individual becomes saved, God begins to open up his eyes to what the devil has blinded him to. The God of this world has tried to blind him to the gospel of Jesus Christ. So when that gentleman becomes aware of the gospel of Jesus Christ, his list changes from women, cars, and money. And it changes to things of the kingdom of God, of being saved, of being righteous, of walking in truth, of desiring to cleanse his soul of everything that is unclean so that when opportunities come along, he's walking in the favor of the Lord and not having to do something to get money, women, and cars. Instead, Jesus takes his place in life and is walking for him and with him, guiding him each and every day so that his life changes because it is no longer him that lives, but it's Christ that lives in him, helping him to make decisions. It's like a person playing a video game. That person playing the video game, the video game can't do anything by itself. But when that person grabs the remote control and it directs the imaginary figure, and it tells it to go left or to go right, or to go faster or to go slower, it's not the person in the video game that's doing the work. It's the person controlling them that has access to the controls in life that is operating for them in life. Jesus wants to operate for you in life. Jesus wants to assist you. And if you're in your room right now and you're listening, Jesus wants to talk to you right where you're at. You don't have to go to a fancy church. You don't have to have fancy clothes, but Jesus wants you to come just as you are. And you can look at the Lord in the privacy of your own home and say, Jesus, I accept you as my Lord and Savior. Lord, I leave everything behind. Lord, I give it away. I give it all to you, Lord, to come and follow you, to be your disciple. Lord, I believe that you died for me on the cross and you paid the price for my sins and for my healings. And today, today, Lord, I choose you. I choose you as my Lord and Savior. I choose to repent and to turn away from all my sins. I choose to forgive those who have hurt me. Thank you, Lord, for this freedom. Thank you, Lord, for this fresh touch on my life. Thank you, God, for just coming into my heart, coming into my life, changing me and saving me. This very day, Lord, I enter into the kingdom of God. And when I do that, I am translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. We're Lord, I ask that you illuminate the path that I'm on so that I can see and reveal to me where I'm at so that I am not perishing in Jesus name. Amen.