"The Kingdom of God first!"
How am I to reach that blessed life?
The answer is : "Give up everything for it." And then, a second answer would be this: Live every day and hour of your life in the humble desire to maintain that position.
There are people who hear this test, who say it is true, and that they want to obey it. But, if you were to ask them how much time they spend with God day by day, you would be surprised and grieved to hear how little time they give up to Him.
And yet, they wonder why the blessedness of the divine life disappears, We prove the value we attach to things by the time we devote to them. The kingdom should be first every day and all the day. Let the Kingdom be first every morning. Begin the day with God, and God Himself will maintain His Kingdom in your heart. Do believe that. Rome did its utmost to maintain the authority of the man who gave himself to live for it. And God, the living God, will He not maintain His authority in your soul if you submit to Him? He will, indeed. Come to Him - only come and give yourself up to Him in fellowship through Christ Jesus. Seek to maintain that fellowship with God all the day. Ah, friends, a man cannot have the Kingdom of God first and then occasionally, by way of relaxation, throw it off and seek his enjoyment in the things of this world. People secretly believe that life will become too solemn and too great a strain - it will be too difficult every moment of the day, from morning to evening - to have the Kingdom of God first. One sees at once how wrong it is to think thus. The presence of the love of God must, every moment, be our highest joy. Let us say: "By the help of God, it will always be the Kingdom of God first."
THE POWER OF GOD'S SPIRIT
And then, my last remark, in answer to that question, "How can it be?"
is this: it can only be by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Let us remember that God's Word comes to us with the language, "Be filled with the Spirit" (Ephesians 5:18).
If you are content with less of the Spirit than God offers, not utterly and entirely yielding to be filled with the Spirit, you do not obey the command. But listen: God has made a wonderful provision. Jesus Christ cam preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and proclaimed, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" (Matthew 3:2) "Some," He said, "are standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the son of man coming in His Kingdom" (Matthew 16:28). He said to the disciples, "The Kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21).
And, when did the Kingdom come - that Kingdom of God upon earth?
When the Holy Spirit descended. On Ascension Day, the King went and sat down upon the throne at the right hand of God, and the Kingdom of God, in Christ, the Kingdom of heaven upon earth, was inaugurated. When the Holy Spirit came down, He brought God into the heart and established the rule of God in power.
I am sometimes afraid that, in speaking of the Holy Spirit, we forget one thing. The Holy Spirit is often spoken of in connection with power, and it is right that we should seek power. However, the Holy Spirit is not as often spoken of in connection with the graces. And yet, these are always more important than the gifts of power - holiness, humility, meekness, gentleness, and lovingkindness are the true marks of the Kingdom.
We speak rightly of the Holy Spirit as the only one who can breath all this into us. But, I think there is a third thing almost more important, that we forget, and that is: in the Spirit, the Father and the Son themselves come.
When Christ first promised the Holy Spirit, and spoke about His approaching coming, He said: "At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you. He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father ... and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 14:21,23).
Brother, if you want to have the Kingdom of God first in your life, you must have the Kingdom in your hearts. If my heart is set on a thing, and even if I am bound by chains, the moment the chains are loosened, I fly toward the object of my affection and desire. And likewise, the Kingdom must be within us, and then it is easy to say: "The Kingdom first."
But, to have the Kingdom within us in truth, we must have God the Father and Christ the Son, by the Holy Spirit, within us, too. There is no Kingdom without the King.
You are called to likeness with Christ. Oh, how many Christians strive after this part and that part of the likeness of Christ, and forget the root of the whole! What is the root of all? That Christ gave Himself up entirely to God and His Kingdom and glory. He gave His life, that God's Kingdom might be established. Do the same today. Give your life to God to be a continual living sacrifice, and the Kingdom will come with power into your heart. Give yourself up to Christ. Let Christ the King reign in your heart, and the heavenly Kingdom will come there. The presence and the rule of God will be known in power. Oh, think of that wonderful thing that is going to happen in the great eternity. We read of it in 1st Corinthians: God has entrusted Christ with the Kingdom, but there is coming a day when Christ will come Himself again to be subjected unto the Father. He will give up the kingdom to the Father, that God may be all, and in that day Christ will say before the universe: "This is My glory, I give back the Kingdom to the Father!"
Christians, if your Christ finds His glory here on earth in dying and sacrificing Himself for the Kingdom and then in eternity again in giving the Kingdom to God, will you and I not come to God to do the same? Will we not count anything we have as loss, that the Kingdom of God may be made manifest and that God may be glorified?
"The Kingdom of God first!"
