Ep. 6: Prioritizing God’s Kingdom in Everyday Life

This episode examines the call to place God’s Kingdom at the center of everyday life, rooted in Jesus’ words from the Lord’s Prayer: “Your Kingdom come.” It offers a clear and thoughtful exploration of what the Kingdom of God is, how one enters into it, and the challenge of reordered priorities in a distracted world. Listeners are guided through what it means to genuinely seek the Kingdom, the visible fruit that flows from a life aligned with it, and practical ways to live out these truths with intention and consistency.

Transcript

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Welcome to On This Rock, the discipleship podcast that trains you to follow Jesus Christ. As you listen, we trust you'll gain a deeper understanding of who he is and anchor your identity in Him. Christ in you is the only hope of receiving God's glory. Trade your pebble for the rock of ages. Welcome to the show with your host, author, and seasoned Bible teacher, Nana Anci. Hey, loyal listeners. Today we are talking about prioritizing God's kingdom. First things first, you've got to get the priorities right, otherwise, our whole lives will be out of alignment. So today we're really talking about. Living in alignment with God's kingdom. So after teaching his disciples how to approach God, the first petition Jesus taught them to pray is Your Kingdom come. Like I said, the Lord's Prayer is about consecration. It's about how to maintain fellowship with God. So it's about the structures, the things that we need to put in place. To have fellowship with the Holy God, and Jesus is saying that we need to pray for his kingdom to come. So why do we need to pray for His kingdom to come? Because the whole world is in rebellion. The world does not submit to God. The world lives by their own imagination. Since the fall, since Adam turned away from God and became a rebel, all his descendants are natural born rebels. They're not living under God's system. So when we are saint, we don't automatically come. Under God's rule in every part of our lives. Now we surrender everything to him. But in reality, we do not necessarily live under his government because we have not yet been renewed in our minds. And as we go through that process of renewing our minds with his word, we come into more and more of his kingdom. In other words, we come into more and more submission. We submit more of our lives to him, more of our lives. Every area of our lives eventually becomes submitted to his rule, to live under his system, to live under his way of thinking, which is the Bible, which is scripture, which teaches us about God's thoughts, God's ways, and God's systems. So Jesus's message was not just about people repenting. Having faith and escaping hell no. It's all about people coming into the kingdom. He preached the good news of the kingdom, so it's called the good news of the kingdom, that the gospel that he preached, which we preach is the good news about the kingdom. So we need God. We need God's kingdom to come. So that we can live under his government because it, it is a sign when his kingdom has come. It is a sign that we are living under his government. So this is a necessity When Jesus says that it is actually first priority. Now, this is not a one and done thing because he's talking about it. As something we need to prioritize, which means we can get caught up in a situation where we are pursuing other things first and putting God's Kingdom second. So the kingdom's priorities are no longer our priorities when we are pursuing worldly things. The world pursues riches, material, comfort, worldly success, happiness, recognition, all sorts of things that are not inherently bad, but they become evil when they become. Idols because by definition, if I'm following an idol, I've come under a different government and Jesus says, we can't have two masters in Matthew six. He says, we can't have two masters. We need to choose. this is what James means by being double-minded. Because ultimately what's happening when we are not pursuing kingdom first, we're not living by God's priorities when our will and his will have not become harmonized. Is that we are living to please ourselves. Because when I'm seeking comfort, food, material, benefits, recognition, all those things, there are things that please me first. if I'm doing that before God, then that's what's happening. But if I'm pursuing God's agenda, whatever that may be. At the moment and all these things then follow. That's okay because he said in Matthew 6 33, seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added onto you. So if we do it, if we have it out of alignment, where we put those things before God's agenda. God's agenda is going to suffer and will end up in idolatry, double-minded. One day we're trying to be seeking God, and then the next day we're seeking our own thing, and so we need to, we need to actually make up our mind to be single-minded about pursuing the kingdom, and that means living in submission to what God wants. That's really the simplistic way of putting it, is what does God want? In every situation, everything you're going through in my family relationships, in my, in, in my job and what, and what I even do for a job when I do it. It's, all these questions where I go on holiday, sometimes God has an opinion on this, otherwise, we're living by our opinions, so it's, it's only finding out, well, God, what's your opinion on this? Or acknowledging him and being open to him changing the, the plan or the program. So it's, it's really acknowledging that he is Lord, that's all it is. So we're going to look at what the kingdom is in terms of its characteristics, what is the kingdom? Then we're also going to talk about how we can enter into the kingdom. Then we will also talk about. How we can come under the kingdom's government and see God's righteousness. Before we wrap up now, first let's look at the kingdom and the characteristics of the kingdom and how we enter into the kingdom. So the, the first thing about the kingdom is that it's a realm. It's a realm. It's a realm of God's government. Wherever God's presence is, and God is acknowledged as Lord, his realm of authority is functioning in that place. But if God is not recognized, then he's not in charge. He's not, the kingdom has not come yet. The kingdom has not become operational in that place. So it, it's a realm now. It's an invisible realm. It's not a physical realm, so it's not a country you can just go to and just say, now I've entered the kingdom. Obviously it's not, but nonetheless, it's still a realm. And so the question really is what realm are you living under? What realm is controlling your decisions? Because when we're talking about realms, we are really talking about. Who is master in that area of your life? Who is controlling your decision making? What is controlling your decision making? Is it God and his system, or is it an idol? And God says, seek first his kingdom. So seek first to be submitted to him. Now, when we talk about idolatry, like I said, the root is really pleasing self. So the root of all idolatry is actually the idolatry of self. It all comes to that. It's, it's really two things, self or God. Whether you're pursuing an idol that looks like money, that looks like comfort, that looks like food, that looks like, We can make anything an idol. We can make family an idol. Anything, a relationship you can make, you can even turn church into an idol. If it's no longer about God, but it's about us and about our programs and about our own priorities, it's no longer connected to the head. It's no longer the head. So the first thing about the kingdom is we're talking about the realm where God is ruling, and we're talking about coming into submission to that realm, coming under the authority of that realm. So the kingdom refers to everything falling under God's authority and territory, as well as everything that is important to him. And entering that kingdom begins with a relationship with Jesus Christ, because Jesus is the door. He's the way into that kingdom, and he's told us how to get in. We get into the kingdom by the supernatural, be of the spirit. He, he told, Nico Deus in, in John three. That, that which is flesh is flesh, and that which is spirit, is spirit. And you can't enter the kingdom unless you are born again. So it's something that the Holy Spirit does in us. He birds us into the kingdom when we receive Jesus as Lord. So when we accept that we want his authority over our lives and we receive what he did for us on the cross, then what happens is that the cross then becomes a way into the kingdom. And when we enter, we come to live under his rule and his authority. And Jesus showed his disciples that we, we pray to God as our father to come into alignment with him. Before we present our own partitions and confessions, so it must be his fest. Otherwise, we risk praying according to our own desires and our own opinions. So we're coming before God with idols. And this is what God was talking about to Ezekiel, when he was talking about Israel's elders. Committing an idolatry and coming before him with their idols. One of the ways that you can tell what has become an idol in your life is what, what tends to flat your mind when you go into prayer? Because idols can be distractions. It's like what is flatting your mind? What bothers you? What, what is the, what becomes your focus when you go to pray, what's the thing that keeps coming before you? Hinders you from concentrating on God and, and, and so that your whole prayer is just about that. Or even if it's not about that, you're just distracted by that and all you're thinking about is that, we need to, we need to bring it into its proper place. We need to submit it to the Lord and anxiety or care. We need to submit it to the Lord and, and come into a space where there's no nothing clouding our ability to interact with him in our prayer. Because prayer is not just about you coming to persuade God to submit to something that's bothering you, even if it's a real thing. It's about aligning ourselves with his purpose and his priorities. I've had situations in my life where I was going through the fire and I was like, God, I'm here with my request and, and God is talking about something else, and I'm like, oh my God, here I am talking about my problems and God is talking about my calling. So he is already showing me that that's not an issue. That's, that's a, there's a amount of alignment in the sense that if I focus on his priority, I'll find that the things that are bothering me, he said, will be added or the solutions will come, or I'll have wisdom for that. But first, this thing that's, and, and that's partly what the enemy does, is he tries to bring crank up things in our lives so that God becomes small and our problems become big. So we're out of alignment in our perception, and that hinders our prayer, and that's why Jesus said this and our fellowship. That's why he says this has to be done right, because if I want to be in proper relationship with God, I need to harmonize with his will. And so I need to come into his kingdom. I need to be aligned. I need to seek it first. I may not even know what the kingdom looks like because my mind may not be renewed in that area that I'm dealing with. So seeking God's kingdom can be renewing my mind so that I can align with his thinking on the issue. 'cause sometimes, following Jesus is, is laying our lives down and sometimes God will ask things of us that are totally counter to how the world thinks and how we think. We may think, well, God, but how can you ask this of me when I have all these other priorities, all these other people I have to take care of, and now you're asking me to go on a mission somewhere and leave them for X amount of time, or whatever God might be like, well, they'll be taken care of. But what I need you to do is go on that mission first. That's putting his kingdom first. But it may not be a natural thing because we are thinking, well, this is a, there are other things in my life that need to be prioritized and we do need to take care of those things. But it may be that it's not you taking care of it in that moment that God needs you to do something else. It may be that you have money, that you've decided to buy a house, and God says, no, I don't want you to buy a house this time with this money. I want you to take that money and go on a holiday with your family. I want you to take that money and give to this person. And coming into submission to God's Kingdom is really living by faith and trust and just acknowledging that God's desires may not be our desires, and that's why we need to pray for alignment. With his way of thinking, because if our mind opposes him, we will not submit to his kingdom. So our mind has to be renewed to to agree with him so that we're not double-minded and trying to live for ourselves and trying to live for him. So how many with God requires that we seek the kingdom? Because Jesus said, seek which seeking is not a one time ask. It means you keep on pressing God. Pursuing him until he comes, until he rewards you. Like he said he would. He said in, in Hebrews 11, six, that the one who comes to him must believe he is, and he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So seeking him requires perseverance. So you keep on doing that same thing. It's consistency until he shows up and faith comes. We seek him for his kingdom. By seeking him on an issue until faith comes. In other words, until Revelation comes, until he answers, until, so you don't quit halfway. You don't settle. You keep on going. 'cause you may be dealing with roadblocks, you may be dealing with resistance, you may be dealing with things that are opposing you and you have to keep on pressing and overcoming and going on until you reach that destination of. God has now released faith on the issue, wisdom on the issue, and even then that now you know what to do to accomplish it. So prioritizing his kingdom involves seeking his kingdom. It means seeking. The kingdom in all our decisions, major decisions like who to marry, minor decisions. like when to do, when to go to a certain place that God has been talking to you about, or even vacation, like I said. So it, it, it, it's, it's about making sure that our lives are not self directed, but God directed. So that when there is a shaking and there's a difficulty, we are not moved because God is the foundation we are building on the rock of hearing and following Jesus. So he is the one who is directing us and our lives are. I've been transformed from living that rebel nature, self-directed life to a God-directed life. It's yielding to God's leadership in every area of our lives. So that's what it looks like. And Jesus said, seek that first. So the manifestation of God's kingdom is the reign of God's kingdom. So seeking that first means I seek his reign, and when he, wherever he rules, there's righteousness. So he says, seek first the kingdom and his righteousness and all other things shall be added. Now in one Corinthians one 30, I believe Paul says, God has made Jesus our wisdom, and that wisdom is righteousness. And sanctification and and righteousness and sanctification comes from following Jesus. So in other words, I am made righteous by his righteousness, but I am living righteously. I am living under his reign. Pursuing his righteousness when I am living by what he says because he is righteous. Because he is my righteousness, because righteousness is a person. Whatever he says, when I do it, I'm righteous. That's what makes you righteous. He is our righteousness. Now we have it as a position, but how do we have it as as fruit, as a way of life? It's from hearing and following because the righteousness is not following rules. It's not living by a standard necessarily, but it's living by the kings. Authority. The king's decrees, the king's words, the king's opinions, the king's desire, the king's will, and whatever I do that is aligned with that is righteousness. So God says, when you seek for his kingdom and his righteousness, now I'm following him. I'm going to find that I have success. It's kind of like Psalm one saying. Blessed are those. Who meditate on his word day and night because they'll be successful to do it. They will And, and this is how Joshua took the promised land because God told him in Joshua one eight, you, if you meditate. Which is thinking about it, confessing it. If you, if you take this word and he says all of it, and you meditate and you observe to do it, you'll find that everything you do will be successful. So sometimes there's a disconnect between hearing and following. We may hear but not be submitted to doing it, and that's not fulfilling his righteousness. So then we don't see the other things. We need to be hungry to stay in that posture of being filled with his righteousness, being filled with, knowledge of his will. Because the Bible says in Matthew five, six, blessed are those who hunger and thi for righteousness, but they shall be filled. We shall be filled with him, be filled with knowledge of what he wants. We shall know through our union, through our fellowship. he doesn't have to say it in words. When you are with someone, sometimes you know what they want because you are in fellowship, you're in communion. They don't always have to use words, but you discern. You discern God's will, God's desire, God's pleasure, and so we need, we need to pursue righteousness since the promise of blessing, blessing. As with an infilling of him is given to the hungry. Our prayer strategy has to include asking God to awaken in us a deep hunger for his righteousness through the prophet Amos. God warn Israel, he said instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice. An enli, an endless river of righteous living instead of, you living anyhow, you want, I want to see a mighty flood of justice. God's justice is his righteousness and an endless river of righteous living. So we need to pursue, we need to pursue through prayer that we are filled with his righteousness and that infilling is not just trickles here and there, but becomes an endless river of righteous living. An endless way of knowledge of his will and person and doing it. Now, the kingdom of God, like I said, is the realm of authority, of his authority. It's the realm of his authority as the sovereign king, and so there can be no kingdom without a king, and Jesus is that king. If he is displaced as the head and something else becomes the head, then we're no longer operating. Under that government that he died to bring us into as disciples. Okay. So now having talked about the kingdom and how to enter in, and how we can come under the kingdom's, government and righteousness, let's look at some very specific things about how we live under the reign of God. Governance under the kingdom. Now, like I said, the first one is we've got to be born again, and we're born again through knowledge of the word. So the word is without corruption, as Peter said, and that's why it makes us righteous. It's pure. So living by that word is comes increasing in my living on, on his word. In other words, growing in how much of God's word I live on means the light is growing in my life. That I'm, I'm getting more and more out of corruption into what is incor Incorruption, which is imperishable what is eternal, which is a word of God. And so Jesus reigns as Lord in me through his word. I'm saved and I into his kingdom through his word now, to continue on that path. Of remaining under his governance, I need to be renewed. In my mind, I need to grow in my knowledge of his word so that more and more of me can come into alignment, like I said, so that it's a life of repentance. It's a life that requires that I displace self assertiveness. I displace what I think, what I want, what I feel to submit to him, even when it doesn't feel comfortable, even when I don't understand. And, and, and to continue on that path in growing in the knowledge of his word. So in one word, it's renewing your mind, continually submitting to that process and being prepared to repent where your will and God's will conflict. Letting go of yourself will so that you can be in alignment with his will. Now the next thing I want us to touch on is this is a walk that is. Through the Holy Spirit. Everything about the kingdom is through the Spirit. We're born again into the kingdom by the Spirit, and our ability to live under Jesus' rule is through the discipleship from the Holy Spirit. And the Apostle Paul taught us that the kingdom consists of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. So when the Holy Spirit is ruling. When the realm of God is around me, when I'm in that realm, when I'm, when I'm under the authority of God, there are three things that manifest his righteousness, doing his will. In other words, like I said, do doing what he says is righteous. So living by faith. The other one is when I do that peace, there's inner harmony. First, there may be chaos around me, but there's inner harmony. There's a peace within because I know I'm doing god's will. Colossians Paul says that let the peace of God rule in your hearts. So God rules us with peace. If I'm doing something where I'm, I'm not, I don't have peace within, you may be questioning in your mind, but have peace within. If I have peace within, if I know, 'cause the mind God has to bypass our mind. 'cause our mind, it it. We're not on a need to know basis with him, but our mind wants to know everything. But faith is of the heart. It's not of the mind, it's not mental. It. God speaks to our heart. So when you know in your heart, when you have that assurance, that conviction, that substance of faith, you know about something and you're doing that, there is a peace. And if you don't have that, that's a sign you're out of alignment with the kingdom. There's no peace there. And the third characteristics is joy. Joy, the joy of the Holy Ghost. So the situation may be one where I'm in affliction and I'm suffering and I'm not happy. But when I start to praise God in my affliction, when I start to praise God in my situation, when I start to thank Him, when I start to show gratitude, his joy floods my soul. So it, it's one where the Holy Spirit disciples us to live righteously in a way where we are not living by circumstances, but living by God's word. So the circumstances may be dictating a different reality, may be may be projecting a lie as a truth. Even people may be persecuting and accusing us. But once I'm living under God's word, the authority of his word. I find that the Holy Spirit works in me, his righteousness, his peace, so I bear his fruit. I express his nature. I express his joy, which is a fruit of the spirit. I express his peace. I express his self-control. I express the nine fruits, manifestations of the fruit that are mentioned. In Galatians five, so living under the kingdom is living under the word, and it's being discipled by the Holy Spirit with that same word, to manifest the reality of the kingdom and to know that, okay, what I'm going through, this is a lie, and the truth is what God says about me and what God says about the situation. And so I have to put on my belt of truth. From the weapons of the kingdom that Paul describes in Ephesians six, to resist these external things that want to pull me out of the kingdom into a different realm. The realm of the flesh will be the contrast, the realm of darkness that we've been redeemed from. So it's important to keep that in mind. We need to be seen these things manifesting, and if we're out of those places, then we need to find where we stopped obeying, or what we stopped listening to and who we started listening to. And we need to come back into alignment so that we are manifesting righteousness, peace, joy. It's not based on external things of this world, which God says are temporary and are changing. It is an eternal reality. We live like people who live in God's presence. God's presence is the, is the kingdom. It's his realm. heaven is invaded by his realm, his his presence. And so heaven is described as lighted by his light. Heaven doesn't have the sun or moon. The Bible says the light in heaven is the light that comes, is emitted from God. So what he's emitting is what Heaven is experiencing and God wants to bring heaven on earth. So he wants to do on Earth as it is in heaven. And so to do that, we have to come into alignment. We have to pursue worship. We have to pursue coming into his realm, living under his word, letting His spirit disciple us through our issues. And as he's gonna do all that through the empowerment of His grace. Because when we walk by faith, grace is released. Grace, we are saved by grace through faith. So faith is going to open the door for the grace to come in and help us to, to, to yield to the spirit, to walk in step with the spirit. So now coming back to wrapping this up, when we are praying, the first thing we wanna know and we wanna make sure is, am I in alignment with you? Lord, am I in alignment with your kingdom? Am I in alignment with your will? When you're making decisions, when we we're going through life situations, we've gotta be thinking about this. Am I in alignment with your timing? Because we may be doing the right thing, but out of time, and so these are things we need to think on and pray that God will align us with his priorities, his timing, the God will align us so that we don't get pulled into the world's priorities. Which include riches, eating and drinking material comfort, wealthy success, personal happiness. Joy and happiness are very different things. external happiness. The world's happiness is based on what's happening around them, what they're going through. And as long as that thing is happening, they're happy, but if it's not there, they're not happy. But, God's joy, which is from the kingdom, is something that is everlasting, which means no matter what I'm dealing with and where I am, I can tap into the joy of the Lord and it can anchor me. It can keep my soul. So it's much better than the, the world's priorities. And God is saying these things in the world are not inherently evil. But when we pray, we have to make sure that we have, we are praying that God's priorities will be our priorities. So that we don't lose our joy, our peace, our righteousness. We don't become out of alignment in how we're building our lives, our families, our businesses, everything, but that God is rightly aligned and we are rightly aligned and we are under his authority and receiving from him. If you are out of his realm, you can't receive the benefit that comes from that realm. So there may be provision God wants to give us, but because we are operating outside of that realm and not submit it to him, we are not receiving what he wants to give us. So we need to seek first the kingdom. That's what I'm going to leave you with. Let's pray to that, that we seek first, not second, not fed, but first. So that all those other things can be added when we become rightly aligned. So Father, we thank you for your kingdom. We thank you that you've made us children of the Kingdom by the new Bes. I just pray, father, that you'll align us with your kingdom. Everyone listening. Lord, align us with your kingdom and your will, and if there's any way we're out of alignment, reveal it and release messy and grace to bring us back into your alignment. In Jesus' name, amen. If this blessed you. As I always say, don't forget to share it, subscribe, and also consider supporting our ministries. Consider supporting Samaritan on the Rock so that we can bring practical help to people in Ghana. Consider supporting, um, women on the Rock so that we can stay on online praying. Join us for prayer, and also sign up for discipleship training with Institute on the Rock. All right, God bless. Bye. Thank you for listening to On This Rock. We're so glad you joined us and hope you've been encouraged. To connect with our women's ministry, explore live discipleship classes, or support children with disabilities through our Mercy mission. Visit on this rock group.com. You can now find everything we offer there. Until next time, stay rooted in Truth And remember, trade your pebble for the rock of ages.