Casting Pearls - Who is First?

  In Matthew 5:33 Jesus is in the middle of the sermon on the mount. Jesus had started by teaching His disciples, with others listening in. They listened and the crowd grew, until Jesus was talking to more than just His disciples and close followers. and that is why in verse 33 he began talking with everyone, He told them all to 'seek ye first' the Kingdom of the Lord. Is God and the things of God first in our lives?
                              The people were listening intently to His teaching. Jesus told them to seek first the things of God. God should always be FIRST in everything we do. Is our spouse first? Are our children first? Are our things first? We need to put God first in our lives. If we have anything in our lives before God, we are asking for The Lord not to work in our lives. This I believe is the most important thing Jesus said in His teaching.
                              Jesus also said in verse 22-23 that our eyes are the light of the body. The eye, if clear, will let plenty of the light of God in and illuminate the way. But, in verse 23 the Bible states, if the eye is not clear or evil, then the whole body will be full of darkness, and leave plenty of room for satan to play with us. So, the darkness of this world will blind us to the light of the things of God. If our eyes can't see then our entire perspective is thrown off.
                              To give you an example, there was a great swimmer who had swum the English Channel and was attempting to swim the 26 miles from Catalina Island off the coast of California to the coastline of California. When she tried it was a foggy day and she swam for a long time before signaling for the boat shadowing her to pick her up. She said she had to give up because it was just too foggy. She was only about a mile away from shore when she gave up.
                              Later she tried again and made it the whole way despite it being a foggier day than before. when asked how she had done it despite it being foggier, she said she had a picture in her mind of how the coastline would look and each stroke she took brought her closer to that picture. Just as she had done, we need to imagine what Heaven will be like, keep that picture in our minds, and know that each step we take in this life brings us closer to where we are going. -John Abney