A man finds treasure hidden in a field. When he finds it, he hides it again. He leaves the field rejoicing about what he’s just found. He goes and sells all he has, for the value of the treasure has deemed everything else trivial in comparison. When he has enough money, he goes and buys the field containing the treasure.
This is what Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like.
Many of us at Taylor are familiar with the command to seek first the kingdom of heaven, and most of us would say we are doing that. We attend church, pray before meals and genuinely engage during times of worship.
Yet if we reflect on our thoughts, actions or motivations apart from these designated activities, we may come to find otherwise. We obsess over people’s perception of us, pour ourselves into our schoolwork or compare our lives to the apparently more exciting lives of others.
While we may be seeking the kingdom to some degree, it is often in conjunction with our search for other things. As Christians, though, we are not just called to seek the kingdom, but to seek it first, above everything else.
Greg MaGee, professor of biblical studies, recalls the parable given in Matthew 13:44 when reflecting on the importance of seeking first the kingdom. In the parable, the man recognizes just how valuable the treasure is, which is why he so easily lets go of everything else in his life to get it.
We will seek the kingdom first when we recognize just how valuable it is, MaGee said.
“I would hope that students wouldn’t feel like they just need to try harder to seek God’s kingdom,” he said. “But that parable suggests, the more we see the value of the kingdom, the more it will be almost natural then to rearrange our priorities and to see his kingdom as first.”
The question is, do we truly understand the significance of God’s kingdom?
There are many things in our lives that fight for our attention and seek to undermine the value of the kingdom. As college students, each day is loaded with classes, meetings and coffee dates. We can get lost in the chaos without knowing it.
It is therefore important to clearly identify the things that are distracting us from our call to the kingdom, Kara Patrick, university counselor, said. Jesus was also busy, but he was never rushed, and he always had a clear sense of his calling, she said.
“If I’m living in a state of stress or anxiety because I’ve really over committed myself to things but I’m not actually being present in what I feel like God’s calling me to, maybe that’s a place where we reduce the amount of commitments,” Patrick said.
Christ’s prayer life also provides a model for how we can seek the kingdom first, she said. Despite his own busy schedule, Jesus withdrew to talk to the Father.
Jesus not only teaches us to pray, but he also teaches us to pray with a specific “kingdom focus,” MaGee said. Jesus gave us the Lord’s Prayer, which concludes with, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”
In addition to prayer, we also seek first the kingdom when we meditate on scripture regularly, Greg Dyson, Vice President for Spiritual Life & Intercultural Leadership and campus pastor, said. Spending time in God’s word creates a space for us to be confronted with ways we may not be prioritizing God and His kingdom, he said.
The importance of praying and reading scripture, however, is not new to Taylor students. These are things most of us can say we do.
Yet, it’s not about simply doing these things along with our other activities. Rather, we do these things as a way of growing closer to God, so that we come to see him and his kingdom for what it is: the most valuable treasure we could ever have.
“God’s kingdom is an upside down kingdom,” Dyson said. “He’s not creating an environment that says it’s possible to have some other priority that's equally as important as him.”
We are not just called to seek the kingdom, but to seek it first. We are called to be the man who is willing to give everything else away if it means getting the treasure.
