SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM

Resurrection and Life (John 11:25)

Welcome to the Spirit Life Centre for All Nations, the living church of the Living God. Jehovah God is the life of everything and the life in everything; without Him, there is absolutely no life. Are you aware of this? If you are, then you would know how much you need Jehovah God for you to have life. This will also help you to keep close to Him so He can keep giving you His life for your survival. Let us tell Him this morning, ‘God of all life, You are the life I need. Please teach me how to keep close to You so that You can keep giving me Your life.’

The holy Bible says that there is a God in Heaven who knows all men. He knows who we were, who we are, and who we shall be. He knows our past, our present, and our future. He knows our nature, our disposition, our hearts’ true character, and the stuff we are made of as much as He does the Heavenly hosts. Therefore, whichever way you come before Him, whether you cry aloud like blind Bartimaeus, “Son of David, have mercy on me,” or you pray silently like Hannah in Shiloh, or you sit hopelessly before your mountain like the man at the pool of Bethesda, our God who dwells in the sacred temple sees beyond your physical appearance.

Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I knew you.”

Jeremiah 23:24 says, “Can anyone hide in a secret place so that I cannot see him?”

Psalm 33:13-15 says, “The Lord looks down from Heaven and sees all of us humans. From where He rules, He looks down on all who live on earth. He made their hearts, and He knows everything they do.”

Proverbs 15:3 says, “The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.”

Job 31:4 says, “God knows everything I do; He sees every step I take.”

John 2:25 says, “For I, the Lord, do not need man’s testimony about a man, for I know what is in the heart of a man.”

He knows the state of your mind. He knows your track record. He knows you better than you know yourself. He knows all our needs. He knows what we need to live for Him here and now. Jesus alone knows what it takes to give us rest. Why don’t we trust and let Him prove Himself? After all, He is the Governor of our future. As Luke 12:4-15 tells us, life does not consist of an abundance of possessions. Life is not fun and games; life is not a playground. What then is life about? The holy Bible says in James 4:14 that life is a vapour that appears for a while and vanishes too soon. Life is like a beautiful flower that blossoms for a while and withers too soon. In other words, life is too short to waste time on things that have no lasting value. We are here for a short season. This world is not our home; we are just passing through. In our passage through this wicked world into our Heavenly home, we need Jehovah God so that we will not dash our foot on a stone and stumble. We need Jehovah God to talk, to look, to walk, and to live life.

In our generation today, we do not know how much we need Most High God, Most High Power, until the situation is critical. Many people today feel incomplete, yet unfortunately, they do not know what is missing in their hearts and lives. They are constantly searching for something, yet they cannot find it. Some think they would be satisfied if wealth, money, fame, and honour came their way. Little do they know that life satisfaction is not in money? True fulfilment is not in fame and possessions. The Book of Ecclesiastes 5:10 says, “Whoever loves money never has enough, whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income, whoever loves possessions, fame and honour will never be content with his life.” All good things come from the Lord. Jehovah God Himself gave us power to get wealth, possessions, fame, honour, and riches. He gave us power to have everything we need to live for Him here and now (Deuteronomy 8:18). But the love of them above the Creator is evil and can drive us to do evil, as it says in 1 Timothy 6:9-10. When you love possessions more than Jehovah God, you are not worthy of Him; you are bound to disregard God, the Giver of possessions. You disregard God when you allow your possessions to dictate your direction. You begin to say what money wants you to say, rather than what God wants you to say. You begin to look for a more convenient time to serve God or to go to church because you are too busy to spare your time.

Remember, when you were seeking the blessing, you were the first to come to church; now that blessing has come, you have no time to serve God. Many allow blessings to make them spiritually blind, spiritually dull, dull in comprehension – that is, in understanding things of the Spirit, the unseen realm absolutely closed to their spiritual vision. Many forget that God’s Word, a Spirit, creates material things; the Spirit is greater than material.

The case of Job is a good example for all Christians today. We are celebrating his life because his focus was not broken. Job had so much faith and trust in God. He never put his trust in his possessions, wealth, friends, or his wife. It is that faith that lifted him above the realm of his own ability and made God’s possibility available to him. That was why he was able to tell his wife, ‘You talk like a foolish woman, shall we accept good only and not bad? When we were living in a mansion, eating five-star food, you never complained. When we were driving around in expensive cars you never lamented, cried, but now it is time to live in a one-room apartment, to eat common man’s food, to use public transport, you begin to see Jehovah God in a bad light.’ Job looked to Heaven and said ‘Blessed be the Name of the Lord. Who gives and takes away at His own time; my heart is filled with praise.’

Job’s heart was filled with joy because true Christianity lies in the heart, in the purity of the heart. But if your hands are full of money and your head is full of information, and if your heart is empty, then your life is very empty. We are made in our hearts to be like Jesus because serving the Most High God, Most High Power, is a thing of the heart. It must come from a pure heart. Matthew 5:8 says, the happiness of seeing Jesus is promised to those and those only who are pure in heart, those who put their trust in God. Luke 12:16-21 talks about the life of a rich fool who invested his entire life in his possessions. The Bible says the rich fool concentrated on his wealth and failed to acknowledge the Most High God, Most High Power. He did not regard God as his Source. One day, the Lord told him, ‘You fool, you have no tomorrow.’ We must acknowledge Most High God, Most High Power, because everything we have today came from Him, and everything we shall have in the future will also come from Him. Whoever is great among men, it is the Most High God, Most High Power that makes them so. The rich should not concentrate on their wealth because a focus on materialism can divert their devotion away from God Almighty to the god of wealth.

Finally, when Jehovah God created man, He gave him the right to life, and within that right was discretion, I mean the ability to choose between right and wrong. You are a free moral agent. You can give yourself to Jehovah God or the devil, but serving Most High God, Most High Power, is the only way to peace and comfort, while serving the devil is a sure way to doom and destruction. When you serve Jehovah God and praise Him, you will eat the best fruit the land produces.

Thank you very much for joining us this morning to worship and praise the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit here at the Spirit Life Centre for All Nations. We encourage you to keep in the attitude of worship and praise, as it helps to keep a positive focus and thinking processes, which produce better results in our hearts and lives. Worship and praise help keep our minds in a healthy state and our spirits strong to stand against each day’s troubles.

For any inquiries or to share about the changes you have noticed in your heart and life, please call or send us a message on this church number 063 219 3326. May the God of peace give you grace and peace in Christ Jesus. Follow us on our WhatsApp channel by scanning the QR code at our church entrance. Also, follow us on TikTok @resurrectionlifetv.

REMEMBER: ‘LOVE’ IS THE GREATEST, NOT MONEY.