First Things First

          I've always been a little amused at Jesus instruction in Matthew 6:33, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness...."
          Priority number one?  Two things!  #1, his kingdom; #1, his righteousness. How does that work?  I don't think it was that he couldn't decide between the two.  I think it's that you can't have one without the other.
          This kingdom that he wants us to place at the top of our priority list--in the context of this scripture, contrasts a kingdom-priority with life's urgent demands that we are tempted to make our priorty: food, shelter and clothing.  Jesus is telling us that his kindom (the church on earth and heaven in the afterlife) needs to be our primary concern and not to waste our energy on worry about accumulating life necessities.  Certainly he wants us to be responsible in providing for our families, but he doesn't want it to rob our souls of the truly important thing--living faithfully in a community of believers with a focus on making it to heaven.  He wants us to have a spiritual perspective on our values.
          The second #1 is a pursuit of God's righteousness.  Jesus wants us to be ever-mindful of our character development.  He wants to imitate the righteousness of God and to grow to be more like him everyday.  Jesus lived out that righteousness in his time here on earth and had his story recorded so we could know what perfect righteousness in human flesh looks like. 
           While the righteousness of God is unsearchable, we can know it includes obedience to his commands, an embodiment of the fruits of the Spirit and, above all, love.  What a worthy and challenging pursuit Jesus laid out  for our lives!  It keeps us facing in the right direction, growing in our spirituality, emphasizing what really matters in life. 
          If we really let these two things be our first priority, we'll never get bored, never run out of things to strive for, and never be limited by our circumstances.  First things first!