“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. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:31-35)
Throughout middle and high school and into college, these words of comfort have held fast to me. Despite what may sound like a general feel-good message, Christ’s claims are massive. Jesus essentially banishes worry from the Christian life. Especially to a Dartmouth student overwhelmed with the comparatively puny burden of what seems to be a perpetual season of “midterms,” that is no small thing.
Jesus claims that the key to not worrying is to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” and that through it, “all these things will be given to you as well.” I don’t think Jesus is saying here that no Christian will ever be dehydrated or without clothes. Indeed, in the greatest act of love, Jesus was all of these things on the cross. What seeking first God’s kingdom and righteousness does mean is that when someone recognizes the ways and redemptive plan of Jesus to be the truest reality, the worries of life, however legitimate, fade into dependency on God. He asserts that when we live with this kingdom-first perspective, what is at stake is not man’s praise, our status, physical comfort, or even our own survival, but rather our participation in the plan of the Sovereign God.
Not only does Jesus command us to seek the kingdom, but he modeled it perfectly and bought a way for us. Despised, full of sorrows, and crushed, the King of the Universe fulfilled God’s redemptive plan through his death and resurrection, that we might have access to his kingdom and be liberated to live for it. We have no need for worry about the kingdom’s ultimate completion, because it is already promised to us. If these radical claims are true, we can live the costly and joyful life of following Christ, and grounded in a lack of anxiety and full of thankfulness, we can be overjoyed in chasing the kingdom with our Conquering King. “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.” Jesus offers us the key to not worrying. The question is whether and how we’ll take it.
🙌🙌🙌 terrific post. I love how the kingdom reframes our needs from immediate things like food and money to glorifying God and loving the least of these.