Praise the Lord and welcome to the God of Wonders Radio Program. Join us for the second part in the message entitled, “Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God.” We will examine, what it means to put God above all things in our lives and all the blessings that follow when we do.
When we are in debt, God knows we are in debt. And we don’t have to work 2 jobs, 3 jobs, or 4 jobs in order to pay the debt. Only simple thing is, seek ye first the kingdom of God. The “First” word is the most important word. It’s not seek ye the kingdom of God, it’s seek ye “First” the kingdom of God. That means we put God first, in everything we do, He truly becomes the Lord of our lives. It’s not just we say Lord Jesus, bless me this day. When we say Lord, is He really the Lord of our lives? Is He really the top priority in our lives? So, that’s what we are going to see. We are going to read from Mark chapter 6 verses 30 to 44. 30 And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. 31 And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. 32 And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. 33 And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. 34 And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things. 35 And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: 36 Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat. 37 He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat? 38 He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes. 39 And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. 40 And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties. 41 And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. 42 And they did all eat, and were filled. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. 44 And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men.
You see the people over here, how the people they came looking for Him and felt that they didn’t had even time to eat and they came after Jesus.
When we looked at the verse 34, it says, “And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.”
So if we look at this, we see the priority again. Jesus knew . Do we think Jesus knows?
He knows, Jesus knows that they didn’t eat, they didn’t have time to eat, they all came over there. Look at God’s priority; He is feeding the soul first, before feeding their body. So, that is very important because if you see that verse in Matthew Chapter 6, He is saying that “is not your life more important?”. Your soul is more important and People are more important than the house they live in. Same way, our soul is more important than our body and our body is more important than the clothing. Do we need clothing? Yes. Do we need to be healthy? Yes. Do we need to be happy? Yes. But what is the most important thing, when we ask the question, that is our soul. Because our soul is going to live forever. So over here, even though Jesus knew they came there without food, they were hungry. What God is doing? He felt very compassionate toward the people, toward their souls first, and He is meeting their spiritual need first. These people, they are hungry, even though they are physically hungry, spiritually they are so hungry, but they are overcoming their hunger and they are coming after Jesus and He is teaching them. He was moved with compassion because they were as sheep not having shepherd and He began to teach them many things. So, we don’t see Him multiplying the five loaves and two fishes over here. He is first teaching them with compassion, he is first teaching them feeding their soul. And after that, He didn’t say “okay, go home, I am here to only feed your soul, everybody get up and go home.” He didn’t say that. He is a God who not only meets our spiritual need, but he also cares about our physical need. So God who knows what we need in our soul, He knows what we need in our bodies also. He knows that we are hungry, He knows we are tired, He knows we are sick, He knows we are depressed, He knows all of those things. So Jesus knowing that even though the disciples came and said “Lord send them away,” He is saying “ you give them something to eat.” That shows the compassion of Jesus saying that they need something to eat and give it and He knew they are going to bring in something, and He is going to perform that miracle, but that miracle not only shows the power of God, but it shows how much He cares about our needs and also shows that when we seek His kingdom first, how He provides. The people did not say, “Lord, we finished hearing your word, please can you give us some food?” People did not ask him that. Without them asking, by them seeking God, He added, He gave the food as a bonus to them. They all sat. In verse 42, we see “And they all did eat, and were filled.” It wasn’t like He gave little portion here, little portion there, like we see that when people run out of food, they try to divide and share when, not everyone is full, but over here even though, there werefive thousand men, that means there were a lot more women and lot more children, so many people they ate, they were full, and they took 12 baskets of fragments. And God is so good. He is a God of plenty; that’s why we read in Philippians that He supplies all our needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. God’s bank account is not empty. God’s basket is not empty. God’s storehouse is not empty. It is always full. So He is going to feed us and give us and meet our needs according to His riches. It is always going to overflow. He is never going to give us something that we are not filled with, like we eat half or we get fed half or we get paid half, and for the other half we don’t know what to do. He never does that. When God supplies, it always overflows. So, this is one passage where we see, that when we seek Him, first, more than our food, more than our physical pain and our bodily tiredness, when we overcome that, go after Jesus - He is sure to meet our need and He refreshes us. He Feeds our soul and our body. So God is a very good God.
The second thing I want to read is II Kings Chapter 4: 8 through 17. 8 And it fell on a day, that Elisha passed to Shunem, where was a great woman; and she constrained him to eat bread. And so it was, that as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat bread. 9 And she said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. 10 Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither. 11 And it fell on a day, that he came thither, and he turned into the chamber, and lay there. 12 And he said to Gehazi his servant, Call this Shunammite. And when he had called her, she stood before him. 13 And he said unto him, Say now unto her, Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all this care; what is to be done for thee? wouldest thou be spoken for to the king, or to the captain of the host? And she answered, I dwell among mine own people. 14 And he said, What then is to be done for her? And Gehazi answered, Verily she hath no child, and her husband is old. 15 And he said, Call her. And when he had called her, she stood in the door. 16 And he said, About this season, according to the time of life, thou shalt embrace a son. And she said, Nay, my lord, thou man of God, do not lie unto thine handmaid. 17 And the woman conceived, and bare a son at that season that Elisha had said unto her, according to the time of life.
We see in this passage how this woman prepared everything, for the man of God.
One way we serve God, is by serving God’s people. And what she is doing here, she is giving nobody told her to do it and she didn’t do it expecting a blessing from God. She is doing, because she wanted to do. She didn’t expect just like the people of that we saw who came, they came to see Jesus, they didn’t come expecting, “okay, He will give us bread to eat.” If we see over here, this woman, she is telling her husband, “we have to make a little chamber, we have to make a little room with a table and with candlestick comfortable enough for him because we know the man of God, He goes by this side.” Not being selfish, she actually made those things for the man of God. You know what the Lord did over here, God is using the man of God to bless her. Just like we read in Philippians, people, they actually blessed Paul and in turn God used Paul to bless those people, he said according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus, God will supply all your needs. So, when we see over here, this lady, she is blessing the man of God, because she had her priorities right, her value was high. She didn’t not say, “okay I don’t want to make this room, this is work for me, I have to spend on this to make the table and to put the candlestick whatever everything cost something, so she didn’t think about that. Her priority was not me, I want to make the man of God comfortable, that is, I want to honor the Lord. So when she did that, what the Lord did was, God took notice, and God speaksthrough - works through people, in one way. And what the Lord did, He actually put that in his heart to find out what this woman needs. And, this woman didn’t have a child, but she didn’t want to say because she didn’t have any hope. So Elisha, called his servant because he spoke to this lady and didn’t get any answer. She is saying I’m full, I’m fine, don’t bother, I’m happy as long as you are blessed. That’s what she is saying. But because the Lord put that in Elisha’s heart, God wanted to bless this woman. Because Elisha cannot do anything apart from the Lord and God put that in Elisha’s heart to find out what she needs. His servant is saying that, “master, she doesn’t have a child, there is no child, she is childless.” And God is meeting, her most important need, physical need, emotional need over there. We know how many times that people who don’t have children they cry, they say “Lord, I don’t have a child” and they feel lonely. Over here, we clearly read that her husband was old, that means she was old too. All her hopes were gone, so when Elisha said that God is going to give you a child, she is saying don’t lie to me, I’ll be broken. She is already broken, so she is saying “I don’t want to be
broken any more, I would rather live with this than for me to think that I am going to have a child and not have a child.” For that kind of a person what the Lord did, she didn’t go looking after, “okay I’m going to give this to the man of God, so I’ll get a child.” No. That was not her motive, her motive was to honor the Lord, she put God first. She put God above her need and what God did in turn is, He met her need and her need was not an ordinary need. It is not something that could have been done by any human being. God did that. So when we see, just like we saw with the five loaves and two fish, the miracle that cannot be humanly done, Jesus does when we seek his kingdom first. And He gives us to the full overflow so same thing with her, you cannot compare her bed, the candlestick, and the preparation of the room, with the child that she got from the Lord. So whatever we do for the Lord, God gives us back hundredfold. When we put the Lord first, seek Him and His kingdom first, the time that we give to the Lord in our personal prayer, the time that we give to the Lord in fasting, the time that we give to the Lord in seeking the Lord, in giving, the time that we give to the Lord in serving God’s Kingdom, God’s people, anything that we do for the Lord will never come back to us the same way. We will never get rewarded even equally. It will always outweigh, it will always outweigh, that’s how God does because God is no debtor to anybody.
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Our most Gracious Heavenly Father, meet the needs of every listener and strengthen their souls that they may enjoy your living presence, in Jesus precious name we thank you Lord! Amen.
May God bless you! Please join us for the next time for part three, Seek God’s kingdom first.
