Add-On

Our Text:
Matthew 6:33 "But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."

For the most part, we follow all the requisite steps.  We accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord,  we make a public confession of our new faith and declare that we are born again,  we expect that old things have passed away and all things have become new.  We join a local church body and some of us become workers in the church.  And so we think we're now part of the commonwealth of Israel.

We read, or hear that we should pray without ceasing, pray with all kinds of prayers, present our supplications with thanksgiving. So we sing praise songs and then pour forth our requests, after all,  He said 'we have not because we ask not' so we ask.  We ask for the things that we need and we know that since the earth and everything in it belongs to Him,  all the gold and silver, and even the cattle on a thousand Hills,  He will grant us our requests.

We also know that He honors His words above His names,  and He said 'Ask, and it will be given to you; ' so we ask and expect to receive that for which we ask. In Isaiah 65:24, the Lord through the prophet said "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. " So we ask and keep on asking but we don't get,  we examine the steps to see what we missed and we didn't miss anything, or so we think.

Here's the hard part,  I've checked all our examples in the Bible of requests being made and I think we might be asking wrong.  Solomon, the man of whom it is said that none before or after him has been so materially wealthy,  didn't ask for money,  he asked for wisdom to lead God's people aright. Jabez was going to war to acquire more land for his people so he prayed that the Lord would bless him, enlarge his territory, and grant him success, for the people.
The disciples asked the Lord to teach them how to pray,  how they may do the things He did.  My search has been by no means exhaustive but I believe we ask wrong.

Our text in Matthew enjoins us to seek, to make the primary object of our search, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. He went on to tell us that all these things which we worry about, God knows we need and that they will be added to us.

But we pursue after and seek the add-ons,  we want to get the 'lagniappe' the small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of purchase, and yes, Jesus said we should come to Him and buy without money,  then He'll give us the add-on, but instead we only want the add-on and somehow think we can wear Him down into changing His standard by our persistent asking.  We throw tantrums and try to blackmail Him into giving us the free gift that comes with the purchase without making the purchase. We don't want what he's selling because it's relationship with him and we only want His hand for our earthly needs.

Let us seek first His Kingdom and righteousness and HE WILL add these material things to us if we trust Him.

#momomily2014