Mark 8:36-37

What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?

Our cynical, materialistic society was well summed up by Oscar Wilde as knowing “the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Like many one-liners, that’s a bit harsh, but he was making an important point. It’s very easy for our money-mad society to overlook the most important things because of its obsession with the temporary things that have a price tag. Jesus pours scorn on this way of thinking. Forget owning a really large house or becoming the exclusive owner of every property in your town – Jesus encourages you to imagine what it would be like to own the whole world. That, he suggests, would be completely pointless if you lost your soul, your very reason for living.

Jesus is encouraging us to think about our priorities. What matters most to us? Whether we are conscious of it or not, the answer to that question will shape every day of our lives. It’s an issue to which Jesus returned on many occasions. In his Sermon on the Mount, he observed how people worry about a whole range of issues. He said there was no need for his followers to expend energy on these things because God perfectly understands our needs and can provide for us perfectly. He encouraged his followers to seek first the kingdom of God. When that is our focus, everything else will fall into its proper place.

Every day, our society will try to tell us what our priorities should be. It may be that at work we feel a pressure to go for a promotion and to earn more money. That may be right for you, but I have known many people who, in answer to the call of God, have gone as mission partners to other parts of the world where they have earned less and faced far greater challenges than at home. It may be that you are thinking about moving home. It may be right for you to move to a nice area where you will feel comfortable and secure, but I can think of a number of friends who have deliberately moved to tough areas on needy estates in order to be able to serve the Lord there. I don’t know what seeking first the kingdom of God will mean for you, but it will certainly challenge the assumptions which our society tries to thrust upon us. Above all else we need to pray, knowing that the Holy Spirit will love to lead us in God’s way.

Question

In what way will the command to seek first the kingdom of God affect your decisions today?

Prayer

Lord God, help me to learn more of what it means to seek first your kingdom in all that I think and do. Amen