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In Season 1 Episode 8 of the podcast, we are discussing how to seek the kingdom of God now. We talk about what the kingdom of God is. Then, we discuss what it means to seek the kingdom of God in this lifetime. Seeking the kingdom of God now means that we should change our priorities, habits, and investments so that the kingdom of God is first in our lives.

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S2E7 – Is it biblical to want to create a life you love? What does the Bible say about pleasure? – A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast

In this episode, we are focusing on part 1 of our series, which is about creating a life we love and cultivating our hearts for God. Before we think about how to create a life we love, we have to figure out if we even should. Is it biblical to create a life we love? What does the Bible say about pleasure? We are going to be looking at some history and then turning our focus to the theology of pleasure in the Bible. Spoiler: Pleasure isn't evil. In this show, I'll explain why. https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/is-it-biblical-to-want-to-create-a-life-you-love-what-does-the-bible-say-about-pleasure/ Get a copy of our FREE guide to creating a life you love here: https://a-more-beautiful-life-collective.ck.page/0398c49016 – Visit our Shop to get a copy of any of the resources mentioned in this episode: I’m your host, Cayce Fletcher, and you can learn a little bit more about me here. While you’re here, would you consider leaving a comment, rating, or review? You can find our podcast, A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube. Subscribe to the blog for access to our latest content and some freebies. I love creating and sharing resources with you. You can find all of our resources at A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop. Keep creating a life you love, and cultivating your heart for God.

Welcome to A More Beautiful Life Collective. We know that in the hectic hurry of everyday life, it’s easy to lose sight of what matters. This is a moment to pause and realign your focus on the one who gives us peace and rest. We are focusing on discipleship, productivity, and homemaking as we live with eternity in mind. This is the place where you’ll learn to create a life you love and cultivate your heart for God.

Hey everyone! Welcome back to A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast! This is Season 1 Episode 8 and I am so excited to be back with you this week. Don’t forget to leave a 5-star rating and review of the Podcast wherever you’re listening to help the podcast reach more listeners. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and the blog at amorebeautifullifecollective.com. Now onto the episode.

Our church just had an awesome camp-out weekend at one of our local state parks. For several years, we’ve been heading to the park on Sunday mornings for a service followed by a picnic. It is always a lovely day as the weather begins to cool down. We can just be with one another and enjoy God’s creation. This year, we added camping to the fun. There is something so special when you carve out time to get away from it all with your family and friends. On the podcast, we talk about pausing and recentering on God. A weekend like this is the epitome of what we have been talking about. There is a certain amount of realignment that can only occur when you stop racing through every day trying to get it all done.

I’ve been blessed in my life to have these kinds of ‘pausing moments’ sprinkled throughout my year. Since I was young, the church calendar helped to punctuate my year, giving me something to look forward to as I went through the mundane tasks of homework, chores, and daily routines. Now, I’m not Catholic – or even Anglican. The church calendar was a literal calendar of events, including VBS, Camps, Fall Festivals, and the annual Christmas programs. These things themselves seem small, simple, and even childish. But, as a child, these annual moments of sabbath rest helped to pull me out of my hurry and point me to the gospel. When I was young, these moments helped to form and shape me into someone who looks for God in the every day because throughout the year I had special events that reminded me that God was in the everyday. I wanted to seek the kingdom of God, but sometimes I struggled with how to seek the kingdom of God. These events helped to teach me that very thing.

In my teen years, the presence of these events was magnified, not diminished. I found friendships, ideas, and truths that have sustained me even till now. We would have worship, classes, and lots of time to just be together. Reading through my books on child formation and development helped me to realize that even in the time outside during camps and events, we were being shaped into healthier, more capable individuals.

We would come away from these events thinking this thought: “This time is a glimpse of the kingdom. It is what we hope – what we know – that eternity will be like.” The worship, food, fellowship, learning. Just being with one another – all of this is what we long for. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has set eternity in the hearts of man.” We know and yearn for this future spent together with God.

I would come away from these church retreats fired up, ready to live on mission for him. But, if you’ve ever done something similar, you know that life has a way of dulling your passions, muting your dreams, and deadening your senses. With sin in the world, life has a way of beating down your will to live.

We however have been called to live abundantly. Eternity is in our hearts, and we live with it in mind. This changes every aspect of how we live.

Seek First the Kingdom of God

Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (ESV). One of our primary goals should be to seek the kingdom of God over everything else. In this chapter – nestled in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is teaching his disciples about what the primary focus of their lives should be. Like the seed in the parable of the sower (Mark 4:19), he knew that the worries and cares of this life could easily choke out good fruit. So, he told them that they do not need to be anxious about clothing, food, or anything else that money can buy. God knows that we need these things and so he will make sure that we are provided for accordingly. We are told to instead seek first the kingdom.

This contradicts how the world expects us to act. One of the basic tenets of social Darwinism is the idea that if we are doing well, we will provide for our basic needs first, and thus, ‘get ahead’ of everyone else. We see this in the expectations of the world. We are expected to do well in school. So we can get into a good college. So we can get a good job and have all the luxuries that we could ever want.

We even see this in the false teaching of the prosperity gospel. Some Christians believe that if you check all the boxes and do all the ‘right’ things, you will be rewarded now. You will have a prosperous life now as a reward for right living. Reading this verse – you might not see the problem with that interpretation. But, is checking off a list of ‘good Christian things to do’ what this verse is talking about? What does it mean to seek the kingdom of God?

What is the Kingdom of God?

So we need to know how to seek the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? In the Bible, we read about a past, present, and future kingdom that is best described as ‘already, but not yet.’ Through what Christ has done on the cross, we have been justified in the past. Christ instituted parts of his kingdom now, which is why we call him Lord. We are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, not of the world. In the future, the kingdom of God will come and dwell as God creates new heavens and earth.

Generally, when we think of the Kingdom of God, we may focus primarily on the future ‘tense’ of this gospel message, the future kingdom. But, we have to always keep in mind how the past, present, and future kingdom of God works. We do look forward to the future Kingdom of God, but we also seek God’s kingdom now.

When I think about how to seek the Kingdom of God in the present day and age, I think the perfect image of this is in John 1 and 1 John 1. In these passages, John discusses how Jesus is the light sent from God to overcome the darkness of the world. Because of the holy spirit living in us, we are also lights sent from God into the world. Through the work of the gospel, God has redeemed us from sin and darkness. Our task then is to go into the world and redeem it for God.

In this way, Jesus is like the dawn, with the first whispers of the light of salvation spreading across the horizon. We are currently living in the age of light, not darkness because of the gospel. But, we are still in the midst of darkness. When Jesus returns in the end to set up his kingdom, the current order of things will be done away with. Everything will be made new – and God himself will replace the sun and Jesus the moon in the kingdom of God.

Knowing these distinctions is essential to help us understand what we need to seek now. Obviously, we have nothing to do with God setting up the physical kingdom that will return at the end of time, and we also have nothing to do with what has already been done in the past. So, what should we seek? We seek the work of the kingdom now. We are concerned with the present kingdom.

And, what does this mean? Just like our analogy of light, we are concerned with spreading the gospel and combating sin. We are here to let God’s light shine into this current age as much as we are possibly able. Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:13-16), it says,

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

To seek God’s kingdom now means that we must be about glorifying God and spreading the gospel. That is how to seek the Kingdom of God now. To do this though, we must change everything about our lives so that we do good deeds and glorify God.

So, where should we start?

How to Seek the Kingdom of God:

We change our priorities.
We change our habits.
We change our investments.

How to Seek the Kingdom of God #1: We change our priorities.

I dabble in a ‘made from scratch’ life. I cloth diapers, bake a little sourdough, and sometimes keep a garden. What I’ve learned from this is that sometimes when you create things from scratch it doesn’t take any more effort, but what it takes is time. I can only imagine how much time it took to do the daily tasks required of someone living during Jesus’ time. Yes, they may not spend an hour or two in the car to and from work and school drop-offs. But, they did have to cook and sew everything by hand. It’s no wonder why Jesus focuses on those two things that would dominate his audiences’ focus. Necessities that require a large investment of time.

Jesus never said that we didn’t need these things, but Jesus says that we do need a reordering of our priorities if we want to learn how to seek the kingdom of God. We’ve been talking about this a lot on the podcast recently. Our habits are determined by our goals, and our goals are just extensions of our priorities.

When we seek God’s kingdom first, we are reordering our priorities with God at the top. Importantly, it’s not just an amorphous goal of God. We are given a direct command: We must seek God’s kingdom. And we must seek it first.

This means that our priorities should be threefold. To have God’s kingdom as our priority means that we:

Pursue a life-giving, committed relationship with him daily, reordering our days to put him first.
Focus on actions that are consistent with good deeds or good fruit. We must live rightly and righteously to glorify God.
Spread the message of why we live differently by telling about how the gospel of Jesus Christ has changed our lives.

When we put the kingdom of God first in our lives, we will naturally make our relationship with God, living righteously, and spreading the gospel our priorities.

How to Seek the Kingdom of God #2: We change our habits.

Whenever we change our priorities, our very days change. By its very definition, to change our priorities means to align our everyday actions to match up with those priorities. If we want to learn how to seek the kingdom of God, we must start with our daily habits. After our discussion on habits, we know what this means. The things that are our habits before we change our focus should change to match our priorities. So, if we had a habit of staying up way too late binge scrolling social media, sleeping in the following day, and then saying ‘we just don’t have time’ to study the Bible – this habit should change. We reshape our habits to make them match up with what our priorities are.

Seeking God’s kingdom first should change every aspect of our lives. Here are some habits that you may start to include in your life as you begin to seek first God’s kingdom:

Daily Bible study
Prayer, both with others and by yourself
Involvement in a church body
Being involved in service opportunities in your community
Hospitality
Family Discipleship
Family Worship

Many of these habits involve actual actions that you do. We also know that many of the habits we have in our lives are the result of our attitude at that moment. So some of your new habits could be the outcome of heart changes due to realigning your priorities.

You may start to have:

More gratitude, and less critical attitudes
More trust, and less worry
More love, and less selfishness
More grace and forgiveness, and less self-centeredness
More generosity, and less greed

We are changing not just our physical and daily actions, but also the habits of our thought patterns. Through our prayers and our faith, we are growing closer to our heavenly Father and seeking first the kingdom.

How to Seek the Kingdom of God #3: We change our investments.

When we change our priorities and our habits, we begin to change what we determine is valuable in our lives. Food and clothing were some of the primary ways of showing wealth during Jesus’ time, in addition to the honor that was given to a person. When Jesus was teaching his audience to not focus on these things, he was essentially telling them to redefine what is valuable. In several of his other parables, Jesus continues to focus on this: the most valuable thing is growing the kingdom of God, both in the importance you place on it in your life and the actual numbers of the kingdom of God as you bring other people into repentance. If we want to learn how to seek the kingdom of God, we must place value on what matters in the kingdom.

When we find that something is valuable, we begin to place more and more emphasis on that thing in our lives. We put more time, money, and effort into making that thing grow.

We have to change the way we invest our time, our money, and our effort. We choose to invest in what will grow the kingdom, not in things that are passing.

Food and clothing, ways of showing wealth in our time and Jesus’ time, are the very things that are quickly destroyed. We all know the times when we’ve gone to the grocery store and spent an unreasonable amount on groceries only to spend the following week eating anything but those groceries. A few weeks later, we opened up the vegetable drawer to find a lemon covered in mold beyond recognition. Decay gets to all the things that we accumulate. It’s up to us to invest our time, money, and effort into the things that won’t decay and break down.

What does it look like to invest in eternal things? How to Seek the Kingdom of God in our investments?

When we are investing our money, we choose to focus on serving others. We give to the church and invest in experiences that spread the gospel and glorify God on earth. When we are investing our effort, we work for the ministry of God now. We serve others, spread the gospel, and do good deeds. We don’t grow weary of doing good, but instead work to spread the gospel. When investing our time, we choose to make the most of our time on earth. We don’t spend our days in ways that don’t add up to anything. We work for others. And, we spend time with others. We know the value of people.

How to Seek the Kingdom of God Now

How to seek the kingdom of God? When we live with eternity in mind, it changes everything about our lives. We reorder our lives to put the kingdom first, and all the things we need in the world are added to our lives as a result.

I think back to this past weekend – it truly was a glimpse of the kingdom. We were in a beautiful place. We were surrounded by people who loved God. We were in community, breaking bread and enjoying God’s creation.

But, a glimpse of the kingdom in this life now is always marred by the brokenness of the world. There is sickness, waste, rottenness. Dirty camp bathrooms, campfires that won’t stay lit, fish that won’t bite.

We recognize eternity is placed on our hearts, and we love those moments that help us to catch a vision of what our future will look like. This should help us to press on, to stay motivated, that despite the brokenness of the world, we will continue to redeem it for God. We will continue to be the salt and the light now. This is how to seek the kingdom of God during our time on earth.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this podcast today. If you have, please leave a 5-star rating and review. You can also comment here or on our social media at amorebeautifullifecollective to keep the conversation going. You can find our show notes and more at the blog at amorebeautifullifecollective.com. Join us next week for another episode!

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