Acts 2:1-4 (A great start)
There is an old saying that, "You are never too old to learn."
Sure enough, this is one lesson that you're never too old to learn:
"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”(Psa. 90:12)
Now, what that means is this:
"Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should."
Some has observed that life is like a dollar bill.
You can spend it any way you want to, but you can only spend it once.
You can waste it, or you can invest it.
The same thing is true of your life.
Now whether you are young or old, six or sixty, healthy and wealthy, or puny and poor, you can make the rest of your life the best of your life.
Just suppose you were starting life all over.
You are old enough to know right from wrong.
You are old enough to learn, old enough to love, old enough to really live.
If you could ask the Lord Jesus Christ how to make the rest of your life the best of your life, what do you think He would say?
I don't think we have to wonder, I think we can know:
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." (Mt. 6:33)
In other words: "first things first."
Now I know that sounds simple
Yet, I want to tell you that if you,
Beginning today, will consciously, continuously, constantly, and consistently
Put first things first,
It would absolutely transform your life!
Now For Some Help Along The Way:
I. SET PROPER PRIORITIES
1. Everything hinges upon this.
If your priorities are not in order, your life will not be in order.
If your priorities are not right, you won't be right.
You don't have to pray about what your number one priority in life ought to be. You don't have to think about it.
You don't have to discuss it.
You don't have to look for it.
You just have to do it.
Because Jesus has already told us what our first priority ought to be,
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God."
The word seek, means to "actively pursue", "to go after."
God does not have any favorites (“No respecter of persons”),
But He does have intimates (People that are neigh(near) unto Him):
James 4:8 says, "Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you"
God said in his word, "Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” (Jer. 29:13)
Note these three words the following verse of Matthew chapter 6:
In v.30 - faith. In v.32 - Father. In v.33 - first.
And of course the Bible says in Heb. 11:6, "Without faith it is impossible to please God."
Faith is putting the Father first.
Think of it this way:
Jesus does not just want a place in your life.
Jesus does not even want prominence in your life.
Jesus wants preeminence in your life.
Jesus wants the first moments of your everyday.
Jesus wants the first day of every week.
Jesus wants the first part of every paycheck.
In other words, Jesus wants to be first.
The Lord is not interested in being the first runner-up in your beauty contest.
The Lord is not interested in being vice-president in your corporation.
The Lord is not interested in being second in command in your army.
The Lord is not interested in living on one side of your duplex.
The Lord wants to be the King on the throne of your heart/life
"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." (I Cor. 10:31)
It means seeking God’s will for your life/living.
As a loyal subject of his kingdom every morning of your life should start by asking the Lord what Paul asked the Lord on the Road to Damascus:
"Lord, what would you have me to do?"
Has it ever occurred to you that if your will was that God's will, would always be done in your life, that your will would always be done?
(I heard tell of a woman who was deathly sick. A neighbor came to visit her and he asked her whether she wanted to live or to die. She said, "I just want whatever pleases God."
The neighbor said, "Well, what if God were to refer the matter to you, which would you choose?" - She said, "If God were to refer the matter to me, I would just refer the matter back to Him." That lady had her priorities in the right order.)
II. SEEK PERSONAL PURITY
We are to seek His kingdom; And we are to seek "His righteousness."
We should be seeking God's character within us.
The kingdom of God is inwardly experienced.
And outwardly expressed.
Man's character is the outward expression of whatever is controlling him inwardly.
Faith is seen by its fruit.
Character is seen by its conduct.
Proverbs 20:12 tells us, "The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them."
(We are never going to make a difference in this world until the world sees a difference in us. ---
Nietzsche, the German philosopher, was the philosophical founder of the Nazi Movement in Germany. He was the first man in history to come to the conclusion that "God is dead." He came to that conclusion by looking at Christianity. Do you know what he said about Christians?
He said, "If you want me to believe in your Redeemer, you are going to have to look a little more redeemed.")
Seeking the righteousness of God means:
A. You Must Desire (want) It - We do what we really want to do, and we are what we really want to be.
Jesus said in Matt. 5:6, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
Paul said in Phil. 3:9 that he wanted to "be found in him, not having his own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:”
"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; tat we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (II Cor. 5:21).
III. SEE PROMISED PROSPERITY
1. Now the Lord says that if you will seek His kingdom and His righteousness, "all these things shall be added unto you."
What "things"?
He was talking about all the things that people worry about:
In v.19 we are told that people worry about finances.
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal"
In v.25 we are told that people worry about food.
"Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?"
In v.27 we are told that people worry about fitness.
"Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?"
In v.28 we are told that people worry about fashion.
"And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:”
Now all of these are things that we need.
That's why the Lord said in v.32,
"(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things."
Now the Lord has promised that if you will seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, you will have all the things you need.
It did not say you would have necessarily all the things you want.
I am convinced there are four lessons parents ought to teach their children early, and that it would be good for even some adults to re-learn.
A. First of all, you don't need everything you want.
I wish I had all the money back that I had spent in my life on things that I wanted that I didn't really need.
B. The second lesson is, you don't want everything you need.
I never wanted one whipping that I ever got, but I needed most everyone of them.
C. The third lesson is, God doesn't give us everything we want.
I, for one, am so glad that He doesn't.
The confession of an unknown confederate soldier:
I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked God for health that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for - But everything I had hoped for....
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered
I am among all men most richly blessed.
D. The last lesson is, God always gives us what we need.
I heard about two stores that were across the street from each other, highly competitive, always trying to get ahead. The manager of one store came out one day and nailed a great big sign over the front of his store that said,
"If you want it, we have it."
Well the manager from the other store walked out and saw that sign, thought about it for a few moments, went back into his store, and awhile later came out with a sign he nailed over his store that said,
"If we don't have it, you don't need it."
Consider this:
If you don't have it, it just may be that God knows at this point in your life you don't need it.
Our responsibility to serve God.
It is God’s responsibility supply/provision us.
Too many people seem to have this backwards.
Too many people think that it is their job to supply and God's job to serve.
They probably would sing the old hymn this way:
I'll have my own way, Lord,
I'll have my own way,
I'll be the potter, You be the clay;
I'll mold You and make You after my will,
While you are waiting, yielded and still.
This attitude will cut off the blessing of God from your life.
In a sense, we have been called to live from “hand to mouth”.
That's ok if it's His hand and our mouth.
(I heard about a missionary who was getting ready to embark and go away to a foreign country. As he was getting on the ship, just going up the gangway, a friend of his, who was a very wealthy person, came to him and slipped an envelope into his hand that was sealed. His friend said,
"You take this envelope, and if at any time while you are overseas you come to the place where you have exhausted every other possibility, and you don't know where else to turn, and you have a need that you cannot meet anywhere else, open the envelope."
Well, the missionary took the envelope, thanked him, put it in his pocket, went up the gangplank and he stayed on that mission field for twenty years. At the end of twenty years he came back home, walked down that same gangplank, met by that same wealthy friend, and he returned the envelope back to the man, still sealed, still unopened, and he said,
"Never did I come to a place where I did not know where to turn, nor what to do.")
Conclusion:
Do you want to make the rest of your life the best of your life?
If so –
You will allow Jesus Christ to be the Lord of your life.
You will Put Him first.
You will live every moment for Him-
And He will take care of the rest.
