Bible Studies

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“But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33


Matthew 6:33 is a passage very familiar to the believer. We’ve all heard and admire the words that Jesus said to his disciplines concerning their needs. We’ve quoted this scripture several times in our lives but did we really understand what Jesus was actually saying through this scripture. I know I was raised believing that this scripture was saying first go to God for what you need and he will add those things to you. I’m sure that’s how most people interpret that passage. Now I want you to open your mind and receive a revelation that God gave to me for his people to really understand what level He was trying to move us to.

I’ve learned that in order to really understand a main scripture you have to reference what comes beforehand and what is said afterwards. So let’s examine what and why Jesus was saying these words. If you would travel back with me to the latter part of chapter 4 in Matthew, you will see that Jesus was doing a call for his disciplines. With them he traveled to Galilee teaching and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing the sick and casting out demons. He had fame about him because word was traveling around that there was a man giving away freebies. You didn’t have to go pay a co-pay at the doctor’s office because the healer himself was laying hands and restoring souls. So there became a great multitude around Him. (You know when you’re helping people they’ll follow you wherever you go.) When he saw the multitude Jesus went up into a mountain and his disciples followed him. Seeing them he began to teach them. He was giving them a lesson on different attributes and their rewards. He let them in on things like if you are a peacemaker you’ll be called the children of God. Also, if you are pure in heart then you will see God. So he was trying to lay a foundation down for his followers. All through Chapter 5 he’s fulfilling the Old Testament laws. He moves on to talk about their treasures that they lay up. This is when you really should start paying close attention.

In Matthew 6:19-21 he says, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.” See at this point, Jesus is addressing an issue that can be a blessing to you or a curse. What to do with your money? That is something the church doesn’t like to fully talk about. The treasures Jesus is referring to in this passage is simple your money. Jesus is supplying us with some great wisdom about what we should do with our money. Jesus is trying to get us to think more spiritual at this point and realize where our focus should be. Our treasures, the thing that we value the most, should be use for Kingdom purposes. See if you lay up your treasure in Heaven then you are giving value to the things that concerns Heaven. Look at it like this, when you pay your taxes the money that is being laid up in the government is bringing value to the things that concerns the government. Social Security and Medicare those things are concerns that the government has adopted and funded through our taxes. So in the same respect when you lay up your treasure into heaven you are funding those things adopted of by Heaven. Please don’t allow the enemy to confuse your understanding of what Jesus is saying in this passage. Not at all is Jesus saying don’t pay your taxes or don’t have savings accounts. Jesus is not against those things we sow our money into for the purpose of looking out for the future, but are your hope and dreams build upon your Certificate of Deposit. Do you depend on your savings account to pay for an unexpected circumstance? Are you waiting on the stock market to soar in order for you to have a prosperous life? See when we start putting our focus and attention mainly in those things we then give the earth’s system power to determine our future. As nice as having a saving account or stocks in a major company can be, the truth of the matter is those things can be soaring one day and you can lose it all the next. That’s why Jesus say don’t lay up for yourself treasures in the earth’s system. Don’t depend on the stock market, bank officials, and governmental policies for the building of your future. He said in the earth’s system moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal. Let’s examine this piece by piece to see what Jesus is trying to get us to understand by that statement.

He said if you lay up treasures on earth, moth and rust doth corrupt. Let’s see if he is forewarning us that the leaders of country and the banking system could not have our best interest in mind. He said moth and rust doth corrupt; let’s get some definition of what moth and rust represents. Dictionary.com says that moth is any of numerous insects of the order Lepidoptera, generally distinguished from the butterflies by having feathery antennae and by having crepuscular or nocturnal habits. Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary says that moth is any of a large number of insects, rather like butterflies but with wider bodies, seen mostly at night and attracted by light. Keep in mind this source say it’s seen mostly at night and attracted by light. Lastly, Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary, says that moth in Heb. 'ash, from a root meaning "to fall away," as moth-eaten garments fall to pieces. Also, this particular source references the definition of moth to the passage of scriptures we are discussing. Wow, we have learned that moth represents numerous insects from the order of Lepidoptera. They are seen mostly at night and attracted by light; coming from the root Hebrew word ‘ash which means to fall away. If Jesus didn’t paint us a clear picture I don’t know what he did. He is clearly letting us know that by putting our treasures in earth that we are going to have numerous demonic beings all from the direction of Satan himself come at night to cause our treasures to fall into pieces. Remember I said pay attention to the fact that the Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary said that moths are seen mostly at night. The word night has a lot of representations but one in particular that I received from Dictionary.com really caught my attention. It said that night is a condition or time of obscurity, ignorance, sinfulness, misfortune, and etc. So the enemy strategically comes to attack your treasures at a time when things aren’t clear for you in life. He attacks when your mind is ignorant to what is going on in the earth’s system. You are basically blind sided by the attack because you’re too caught up in your sinful pleasures in life. Then it ends by saying that night is a time of misfortune. You’re just completely screwed by the hidden agenda of the enemy through this earth’s system.


Now we find that rust has an interesting meaning as well. On the site, dictionary.com, one meaning we get for rust is any growth, habit, influence, or agency tending to injure, deteriorate, or impair the mind, character, abilities, usefulness, etc. After exposing Satan attacks representative of the moth, he now shows us how he plans on playing out his plots against our treasures. Dictionary.com said any growth, habit, influence, or agency. (Growth, habit, influence, or agency) So how does the enemy come against our treasures? He simply uses our family, friends, educators, and even spiritual leaders to help injure, deteriorate, and impair our minds. That’s exactly how the enemy can take control of us by attacking our minds. How does he use those people? I’m glad you ask. From our family, mainly our parents, we learn our bad spending habits. We learn how to get into debt but never learn how to manage our credit. We see our family imitate how and where to spend our money. That’s part of our growth process. You must understand how important it is to show good habits to our kids at a very young age. If they don’t ever see you physically tithing and giving then of course they are not going to learn to do it themselves. Now we tend to follow the habits of our surroundings. If everyone around you love to waste money on eating out all the time and never use the money for important kingdom purposes, then sure enough your focus will be on eating out with them all the time. There have been times where I knew I had a bill to pay and I didn’t have any extra money to go out and eat. I’ll be focus on not spending the money until one of my friends gives me a call and say let’s go to Macaroni Grill. That’s all she wrote and we’ll both go there spending close to 50 dollars together on the bill. The next week, I’m wondering if my phone is going to be cut off and my friend wondering if they’ll have enough gas to get to work that week. We had the money to take care of our needs but we decided, because of bad habits, to spend it on something that was only a temporary pleasure. We all know about those temporary pleasures. Those pleasures we don’t really want to discuss with our parents who actually passed on those bad habits during the growth process. Well if you could get back all the money you spent on temporary pleasures, some of you might be able to finish paying off that car. Some of you wouldn’t have to get into more debt to help pay off past debt. See we have to understand that God is trying to prepare us to be some prosperous people depending on no one but him.

We’ve dealt with growth and bad habits; now let’s see how the enemy gets us during influence. Well let’s just say that you have some good spending habits. You know how to tithe and give an offering. You believe in helping the poor. You have such a giving heart but then one day bad habit walks into your life. Now bad habit is everything you ever wanted in a companion. Bad habit adores you and gives you exactly the right amount of attention you crave. The only thing wrong with Bad Habit is his or hers bad habits. You don’t notice the bad habits because hey you’re floating on cloud nine. Well because you’re so blinded by the moth-like charisma this person has now the influence kicks in. You start changing the way you do things because you have been struck by a moth and now the rust is about to take over your influence. You have to be careful who you let into your life circle because you might be inviting a moth to come and rust your influence. Now you got bad habits from the influence of Mr. or Mrs. Bad Habit. So guess what? The enemy is not going to stop there; he is going to use you to bring a moth-like influence on your best friend. Then your best friend is going to influence his sister, who is going to influence her cousin, who is going to influence her neighbor, and so on. Now you have an agency of influenced people all suffering with bad habits from someone who had a negative example in their growth process. It’s all starts when they are 12 and younger. We have to set up the right example in order to stop the enemy traps for our youth.

So now do you understand why Jesus said don’t lay up in earth treasures where moth and rust doth corrupt. You have to understand that all these agencies of influenced people with bad habits that started in the growth process run our government. These people are the CEO of banks. Not all governmental officials are part of this agency but I’m sure a good majority of them are Mr. Bad Habit himself. All these moth-like people are robbing banks everyday. That’s why you can’t trust your money in the earth system. You talk about taking a risk; you are gambling with your whole future if you trusting in the stock market. Have you not seen the news reports of all the rust that is in these major corporations; all this fraud and money laundering. You can’t trust that you’re going to hit it big if you invest your money. You have to have your trust and hope into something more worthy. And that’s simply is Kingdom business. Jesus made a promise to us that supersede any guarantee that man could ever give you. He said if you would only seek his kingdom and righteousness. If you would only take concern for what matters to heaven, he will take concern for what matters to you. You want a financial blessing, you want your bills paid on time, get some concern about what’s right to God. Make him your priority.

He says in Matthew 6:31: Therefore take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? Or, what shall we drink? Or wherewithal shall we be clothed? He’s saying stop being concern about your needs. Don’t worry about how you’re needs are going to be met. Don’t ponder on how you’re going to make it. In verse 32, (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek;) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things., he’s saying you are my children and my love ones. I know what you need. I’m concern about what you are in need of. You don’t have to make your needs your priority. The Gentiles, the ones who have not accepted me, they have to defend for themselves. They have to make ways from themselves. But see I love you and you love me and I wouldn’t let you live in lack. I wouldn’t allow for you to live in poverty. I would take care of everything that you desire, if you would only make my kingdom business your top priority. Seek ye first, that’s top priority. Not second or third but first. Make my business and concerns your first business and concerns. The kingdom of God and his righteousness, that which is important to heaven. Sow your seeds into these ministries. Give to the poor and bring them off the streets. We have to be the one to shine a light of hope to a dying world. That’s what concerns heaven. We have to make it our mission to bring in the harvest. We have to show the world that there is a better way of life. So many teens are growing up and learning lessons from the streets. When can the teens depend on us to show them a better way of life? To accomplish these goals we need money. The churches and ministries need money to operate and function for the world. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Fund what matters to me first. Give me your first. But, glory to God, Jesus didn’t stop there he also said that all these things referring back to what you eat, drink, or wear, will be added unto you. If you just make my kingdom purpose your first concern then I will make your needs my concern. He didn’t’ just say give and give and give. He made a promise that if you would give then he’ll make it so that we won’t ever have to think about our needs again. Your needs will be met so fast that you’ll forget that you even have them. God is so, so good. He doesn’t just want to use us up but he wants to bless us. He wants us living at a level high above what the rest of the world lives. God wants our lives to be so enjoyable that all will see and marvel after the God who watches over us. That’s how we’ll win souls for the kingdom by showing the world what kind of God we serve. We serve a risen and reigning Lord. We serve a loving and caring father. We serve an abundant God. We serve a God who can do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think. We serve a God that is faithful until the end.

God is more than enough for what we need in this life. Seek his kingdom first and foremost and then he’ll supply your needs. Not only will he supply your needs he said he’ll supply your needs according to his riches and glory. (Philippians 4:19) That means your present resources can’t determine how well God blesses you. That’s some shouting grounds right there. God is not limited by your present situation. So make his kingdom your first and watch your life accelerate to higher heights. God is definitely true to his word. If you trust and believe in what he has reveal to us in this lesson, then he can’t help but to open the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing. Then, not only will he pour you out a blessing but he’ll give you too much so you can go bless someone else. God is great and God is good. Be Blessed!

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