Seek First

God has taught me a lot this week.  He has taught me about pride and its consequences.  He has taught me about the price of following Him.  He has taught me about priorities, hardship, and trust, about responsibility, integrity, and loneliness.  He has challenged me to acknowledge some of the emotions I have faced coming into college and then revealed to me their cause.  He has pushed and pruned and refined.

But there is one incredible thing that God has put on my heart this week as never before.  He has led me to realize how much time I spend trying to be a better Christian.  How much time I spend reflecting, striving, and craving to be good.  This is a self-focused Christianity, one that looks in more than up. The message of the Gospel cannot prosper in such a narrow-minded way.  Christianity is not about Christians, it's about Christ.

When I seek to be a better Christian I am following virtues as though they were idols.  It is only by following Christ that I can be made complete, that my heart can be transformed from stone to a living, beating organ.  Christ is not the goal, He is the means by which we live in God's kingdom.

This is the underlining message I have seen in everything God has taught me this week.  So with all that I learn, I will seek, not to be a better Christian, but to grow closer to Christ.

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." -Matthew 6:33

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