Seek first the kingdom — and everything else falls into place.
Jesus' anti-anxiety verse. Why getting your priorities right is the cure for worry.
The episode in a glance.
- 01Spoken after a long passage on not worrying about food, drink, or clothes.
- 02'Seek first' = highest priority, not earliest in the day.
- 03'His kingdom and his righteousness' — God's reign and God's character.
- 04'All these things' — the very stuff you were anxious about.
Read along.
Jesus had just spent a paragraph telling his listeners not to worry about food, drink, or clothes. Then he sums it up: 'But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.'
'Seek first' doesn't mean first thing in the morning. It means top priority. Whatever rises to the top of your list is what you seek first.
'The kingdom of God' is God's reign — his way of running things. To seek it is to want his rule in your life, in your relationships, in your decisions.
'And his righteousness' — his character. The kind of life that looks like him: honest, generous, merciful, faithful.
And here's the promise: 'all these things will be added.' All the things you were anxious about — needs, provision, the basics — God will handle. Your job is to seek first; his job is to add the rest.