Seeking the Kingdom

This morning at my kitchen table, I began the "bible study roulette".
Have you ever engaged in that? When you open the Bible and consider whatever scripture your eyes land on must be your word from God? As usual, it did not work well for me so I began to wander around in the Gospels which can always speak to me.

Here's the verse that settled in and took a'hold of me. See if you recognize it:

But He (Jesus) said to him, "Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?"

Now to my knowledge, I have never really paid attention to the verse. However, when I put this verse in context with the surrounding verses, an old familiar story became new for me.

This guy in the crowd asked Jesus to intervene in an important situation that he was struggling with in his life. His situation was personal, filled with deep emotions and had life changing consequences. This guy need assistance to see that the right thing was done.

Jesus answered him not with a direct answer, but with the above question. "Man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you?"
It's like Jesus was saying,.."C'mom man! You're not paying attention to what I'm saying!"

As then, as He always does,....Jesus begins to teach the people to stop focusing on our worldly life, and start paying attention to the things that will last eternally. The parable of the "rich fool" in Luke 12 is talking to all of us, and I think we can all assume that we are ALL in danger of being the rich fool,..regardless of our financial worth or what is occupying our minds at the moment

The issue is not the "things" we deal with in our lives.
The issue is our Hearts.
Not paying attention to our important things in life will have devastating results. Temporary.
Giving no attention to our heart will cause spiritual disaster.
Eternal.

The rest of the verses in that chapter are then spoken directly to the disciples and reminds us to "Seek the Kingdom of God" and don't worry about all the other stuff in our lives.
Personally,..it's a full time effort for me to keep my mind thinking about about the "Kingdom of God".

I can picture Jesus cupping one of the disciples chins and gently turning that worried face upward to Heaven and whispering,..."Look up!"

It felt good to have Him do that to me at my table this morning.