Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ~Matthew 6:33

I’m a firm believer that spiritual maturity is when you realize that everything you need in life, God has already provided, and you’re able to live your life making an impact on other people. Life no longer is about you – but about changing the world for the Kingdom of God.

I believe the first step to becoming Kingdom minded is to daily renew our minds to what God’s Word says about our call to change the world.

Here are some principles that I am always going over and reminding myself of. These need to be embedded in our hearts if we’re going to do what God called us to do:

We’re Called to the World, Not the Church - Mark 16:15,16 and Matthew 28:16-20 we’re COMMANDED to go out and change THE WORLD (Not the church). The church should be a place where we get equipped and matured to go out and change the world. If we’re not changing our communities, cities, counties, states, and nations…we’re off.

We’ll Never Change the World for God if we Don’t Die to Ourselves – Jesus said in Mark 10:39 and several other places that we have to lose our lives FOR HIS SAKE in order to find it. I truly believe that…so many people are looking for purpose in life. They’ll never find it aside from God. We have to be willing to let go of our dreams, our desires, our passions and exchange them for His. Paul understood this when he said in Gal. 2:20 that it’s no longer I that lives, but Christ that lives in me.

We Need to See People the Way God Sees Them: Romans 3:23 says we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. I think as Christians it’s easy to forget that the only difference between me and someone in the world is God. Without the grace of God I too would be lost… it’s so easy to forget where we were before we met God isn’t it? Aren’t you glad He loved you where you were at? We need to do the same for people…

We Need to Love People - In John 13:35, Jesus said that people will know your His disciples if you love one another. I think one reason the world has such a bad view of God and Christians is because we’re not loving one another. The best definition I’ve heard of love is: Love always does what is most beneficial for the other person. If a stranger met you on the street – would they see love? Would they see Jesus?

That’s enough for now… Thoughts?

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ~Matthew 6:33

Today I just want to touch on truths that I’ve learned and continue to learn throughout this journey of becoming Kingdom Minded. The rest of the “series” I’ll touch on actually being Kingdom minded – how was can make an difference in the world we live in for the Kingdom of God!

Truths I’ve Learned Along the Way:

Not Everyone Will Like Me: The moment I realize this – it becomes very easy to live for an audience of One as opposed to living for an audience of 6.2 billion. Gal. 2:10 says, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” In a few days, I’m going to stand before God and be accountable for what He called me to do and I won’t be able to tell him, yea, but Lord, people didn’t like that… so I didn’t do it. That won’t fly… Learn to live for an audience of One.

God is my Source: I used to think I had to do all these things to get promoted, get noticed, get a job, get a raise, etc.. A huge lesson I’ve been learning is that my job is not my source, people are not my source, God is my source. He will promote me as well as provide for me. Is God your source?

Making a Difference in the Lives of Others is All that Matters: Mother Theresa said it all when she said, “A life not lived for others, is hardly a life at all.” How true…

True Success is Doing What God Called You to Do Right Now: So many people think success is a destination – it’s not. Success is a journey. The minute we place an expectation on a destination for our success such as when I graduate, when I get married, when I’m a senior pastor, etc., we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment. The truth is if you’re not enjoying where you are now – you won’t enjoy your life when you get “there”. Learn to be content and happy with where God has you RIGHT NOW and enjoy the journey.

He Must Increase, I must Decrease: This has been such a huge lesson in my life. I would highly recommend a leadership lesson by Louie Giglio called the Little Leader (I have it if you’d like a copy). When it comes to being Kingdom Minded – the best question we can constantly ask ourselves is: As a result of my life, is Jesus getting bigger and bigger while I’m getting smaller and smaller? Because when it comes down to it when people see me – they shouldn’t see Bubba, and all my gifts and talents, but they should see Jesus and everything He’s done for them. The only way we’ll change the world is if He increases and we decrease.

What are some truths you’ve learned in this area???

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ~Matthew 6:33

Do you ever have those moments when God speaks something to your heart about where you’ve been missing it and you just want to fall on your bed and just cry? That’s where I was when God was dealing with my life about building my kingdom versus building His. I’ve learned a long time ago that if I’m for real when I tell God, “Lord, I’ll go where you want me to go, do what you want me to do, say what you want me to say” then I’m going to have to allow Him to mold me into the man of God He called me to be. Often times our refining process occurs through discipline.

Hebrews 12 tells us that God disciplines those He loves…it then goes on to say that No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening – it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way (v.11).

So when I was going through this – I had to look inside at be totally honest and vulnerable about the motives of my heart.

These are some hard truths I had to confront within me:

I cared more about pleasing people than pleasing God: I wanted people to see how great I was! Again, I wanted to build the Kingdom of Bubba, not the Kingdom of God. I was constantly trying to impress people with where I was spiritually, physically, and mentally.

I had an inaccurate view of success: I thought success was when you are in the spotlight, popular, and everyone thinks of you as a mighty man of God!

I thought I could get everyone to like me: I don’t deal well when people don’t like me – so I would do anything to get people to like me. I would often pretend to be things I’m not in order to get people to like me.

I was focused on me instead of others: I said that I wanted to add value to people, but really – I wanted to add value to myself.

I thought I could promote myself: I was naive enough to believe this – I tried climbing the ladder of success on my own instead of realizing that promotion comes from God.

Now – I am pretty hard on myself – I don’t want you to think that all the motives in my heart were wrong because they weren’t. A ton of them were perfectly fine – I’m just showing you some of the lies I bought into through this journey of becoming Kingdom Minded. Tomorrow I’ll cover the truths I’ve learned through the journey.

When is the last time God’s disciplined you and brought out some of the lies you’ve been buying into? Were you open to them? Or did you say, no that’s not me…I’m not like that? I encourage you to take some time and write down the areas in your life God has been dealing with you in… be open and vulnerable and realize that if you’ll be willing to walk through that journey that in the end – you’ll be at an entirely new level spiritually!