The Most Powerful Weapon For a Kingdom-First Mentality

In church this week, one lady shared her recent experience with regards to having a Kingdom-First mentality in her life. She touched on a fairly common theme; the eternal struggle to find and spend quality time with God each day, seeking his kingdom.

The story went thus; work had begun to encroach on this lady’s life. Job demands had her spending up to sixty hours each week doing overtime in order to clear her in-tray. For her, finding the time to spend time with God and seek his kingdom had become a real struggle. She found herself so exhausted that even spending ten or fifteen minutes each day reading God’s word and spending some quality time in his presence had become all but impossible.

She offered some ideas on how to overcome this. All really good advice.

I’m sure that most of the congregation could relate. I certainly could. How often do we find that career pressures and work demands sap all of our time to the point that we struggle to muster up the energy to spend even fifteen or twenty minutes of quality time each day seeking God and his kingdom.

However, it occurred to me that, even in this, we have it all wrong as believers. We spend eleven to twelve hours each day taking care of our career — and then consider it a win when we are able to commit to fifteen or twenty minutes of quiet time in God’s presence each day. And more often than not, we don’t even manage that. How low have we set the bar?

Jesus said, ‘… seek first his kingdom and his righteousness’

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Matthew 6:31-33

In this passage, Jesus challenges us to adopt a Kingdom-First mentality.

First means — well, FIRST!

This does not mean the first twenty minutes of our day each morning. It means first and foremost. Front and center. And Jesus knew exactly what would rob us of that Kingdom-First mentality in our lives; worry about life’s basic necessities. What we will eat, what we will drink, or what we will wear. In the modern context, this equates to our paycheck!

A job enables us to buy what we will eat, drink or wear. And once we focus on that, said job quickly consumes all of our time and energy — to the point that it dominates every aspect of our lives. That job determines what time we wake up, how we schedule our calendar each day, where we must be, what we must do and when we can stop. And whenever there is a clash of priorities, we quickly begin to make every decision around mounting work demands to ensure that, whatever else happens, we get the job done for our employers.

In fact, it is only when these all-consuming career demands begin to encroach on the last ten to twenty minutes of our time spent with God each day, that we actually begin to take any notice of the problem.

This is not a Kingdom-First mentality.

How to Build a Kingdom-First mentality.

A Kingdom-First mentality puts God’s kingdom first. Plain and simple.

This means a complete paradigm shift for many believers today. I include myself in this; I am as guilty as the next person. A Kingdom-First mentality means that God’s will and purpose for my life are front and center. In other words, his kingdom and his call on my life should drive when I wake up, how I schedule my calendar, where I must be, and what I must do on any given day. Once I have established that agenda, I can then begin to fit my work commitments around it.

This is far from easy. It requires a fundamental change in attitude towards work and how we earn our money. Think about it. When we finish school and enter the big, scary world, we need to figure out what we will eat, drink and wear. So we go out and get a job. This pays us a salary and, as long as we keep that job, what we eat drink and wear is taken care of; no need to worry. The price is our time and freedom. That job quickly soaks up all of our time and energy, leaving very little bandwidth with which to pursue the truly important things in life — like seeking God’s kingdom. Pretty soon, we find ourselves struggling to set aside ten or twenty minutes each day to spend in God’s presence.

Trouble is, the moment we lose that job, for any reason, the worry returns with a vengeance. Instead of using the time and space we now have to seek God’s kingdom in our lives, we fret. What will we eat, what will we drink and what will we wear? This drives us back to the job market in search of another paycheck.

It takes immense courage, and faith in God, to break free from this cycle. A Kingdom-First mentality is built on such faith and courage.

Now, I am not suggesting we all quit our jobs this second and embark on a romantic faith-filled journey into the great unknown. What I am suggesting is a simple practical set of steps that work towards the goal of putting God first in our lives.

Try the following as an exercise over the next few months or year

1. Begin with a simple commitment, starting now; to spend time with God for no less than ten or twenty minutes every day. In that time, seek God through prayer and Bible reading — and understand what his kingdom should look like in your own life. It might be reaching out to your local community, sharing the love of God through an online blog or YouTube channel, or taking short-term mission trips to far-flung parts of the world. It might even be some sort of full-time ministry.
2. Once you understand God’s will and purpose for your life (i.e. what he wants you to do), take action. Understand where God wants you to be , when he wants you to be there, and how much time he wants you to spend serving his kingdom each week. Grab a calendar and enter these tasks and responsibilities on the relevant days. If travel is involved, then add this too. Now you have created a calendar that is centered around a Kingdom-First mentality.
3. Next, begin to fill in your work commitments around this. For instance, if God’s kingdom requires you to travel to distant venues every Friday, then you will need a job that allows you to work Monday to Thursday, and gives you Fridays off. Alternatively, if God’s kingdom requires you to do short-term missions for the entire summer, you need a job that is prepared to offer you unpaid leave for the whole of July and August each year. Or maybe one that allows you to work remotely over the summer, with flexible hours.
4. In the event that this new work structure will earn you less money than you currently earn, you need to either find ways to reduce your current expenses or you need to seek another job that pays more while allowing you the time and freedom required for step three above.
5. Begin working towards that goal. Start managing your money, reducing your expenses, and seeking the type of job that will enable the lifestyle to which God has called you. It won’t be instant — but if you consistently make the choices that seek to put God’s kingdom first in your life, you will eventually achieve the goal.

This is a Kingdom-First mentality. When we have this mentality we truly put God’s kingdom and his righteousness first in our lives — and build the rest of our lives around that. This includes the choices we make about where and how we earn our paycheck each month.

In short, we cannot be intentional about seeking first the kingdom of God without being equally intentional about how we earn and spend our money; they are flip-sides of the same coin, according to Matthew 6:31-33.