Seek First

This week marks the beginning of a new year where For Real Radio Broadcast starts earlier, 9:30 EST to be exact.

Last week the message was titled, "We’re Running Out Of Time." This week it’s "Seek First." Chief Apostle H. C. Gunn began the message with this question: “How many times have you considered who’s No.1 in your life”?

This is an excellent question posed by the messenger to begin the new year. Often times people begin the new year with resolutions that will ultimately fail. The reason is simple. It’s not a resolution that’s needed in the traditional sense to start fresh. There has to be a change in your thinking and in your believing. It begins with who is first in your life. You cannot yield the fruits of righteousness if Jesus is second place. We know this because as Chief Apostle puts it: “God always instructs us in the counsel of his will.”

He then proceeded to teach from the following verses in Matthew 6:

22 “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

Chief stated that “if you are after God in his ways, in his word, by his spirit, baptized in his spirit, being replenished refilled in the spirit, then your whole body will be filled with the light and the very life of God.” Here we are given two steps to take. What the messenger means is that we are to:

1. Seek to follow God in the way he says to follow him through reading the word of God.

2. Be led by the Spirit of God by being baptized in, and refilled with the Holy Spirit daily.

The broadcast continued with a warning that “if your eye be distracted, or evil, or worldly then thy whole body shall be full of worldliness. Are you in such a state at this juncture in your life? Are you in between decisions of doing what you know is right, according to the word of God while trying to do it your way?

Matthew 6:24 shows us this: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

Riches, materialism, the fashion of the age is not how God requires us to serve him. That does not mean a person cannot be affluent, and attain success. The instruction from God himself is not to seek after those things. The time is now to check your motives concerning these matters.

Matthew 6:25 “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?”

It means that if you find yourself after worldly gain, then you need to stop, and put Jesus first by seeking him. The things the world says to worry about, God says fear not as he will provide for, and meet those needs. This demonstrates his sovereignty over all of creation. This is the same Jesus who feeds the birds of the air, and clothes the lilies of the field. There's nothing done in their own power that sustains them. Yet, their needs are met by the one who has created them. Our needs are met by the same almighty God who has loved us so much that he made us in his image. How much do we owe it to See-King? How much do we owe it to seek and to see Jesus? Clearly we owe greatly, but there is something lacking.

The problem we have, as Chief Apostle puts it, is not the amount of faith in our lives, but “shameful faith. O ye of shameful faith.” He said that hell seeks after worldly gain and wants you to do the same with the things that God has already and readily provided for you.”

Matthew 6:32-33 “(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

It’s time to seek God "in his realm, in his rulership and in his character by walking in his word." It’s time so see God as ruler over your life. It’s not enough to “just give Jesus your heart” and then go back out into the world and do whatever you desire. The word says “Seek ye first.” Yet everyone will not achieve the same successes in life, but as the messenger has said “according to the measure of your seeking and surrender,” you can develop God’s character and walk in his power. That’s worth more than any success that the world has to offer.

You must, as in Matthew 6:34 says: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”. As chief puts it, “it’s time to take a good ole bath”.

Seeking God first means an earnest desire to live life right. It means that sometimes God will allow you to have hard times so that you can appreciate your now. The difficulties you face, God will use to grow you. So awesome is our God that he can use the same hardships you have endured to help someone else. You can help them, at the point of their feeling like giving up, realize that they do not have to. Why? Because God helped you make it through. Seeking helps us to make it, but it is our surrender to the will of God by which Jesus does and will sustain us. If you want what Jesus has for you, you have got to

Seek (Him) First!