I have very fond memories of my days in church youth group.  My friends were all from that amalgamation of South Kansas City kids.  Most of the girls that I dated where members of my church youth group.  And most of my extracurricular activities were things our youth group was doing . . . mostly for fun!  I remember one particular March.  It was near St. Patrick’s Day and we had a youth group scavenger hunt for things that were green.  The only caveat was . . . the items were not on the church property.  They were all things that members of the church possessed and we had to go and ask them if we could borrow them.  I do not remember exactly who was on my team but I do remember we all crammed into Alan Shelby’s 1975 yellow Honda Civic Hatchback.  It looked like we were in a college fraternity and sorority challenge.  You know the one – how many students can you cram into a VW Beetle.  Once in the car, we had our list in-hand, the clock had started and so, off we raced down the streets of South Kansas City. 

One of the items on our list was a green bikini top.  Reminder – I grew up in an independent fundamental Baptist church.  Morally we were very conservative.  Therefore, it did not cross my mind that a young or adult woman of our church would wear anything other than a one-piece bathing suit.  Well, we debated who might have a green bikini top and we came up with Elaine, our music director’s wife.  So we raced to their home, which was not far from my parent’s house, knocked on the door, and asked her if she had a green bikini top.  Surprise!  She did!  For us teenage boys – we thought we had just died and gone to heaven.  Unfortunately, it made the rest of the scavenger hunt feel anti-climatic because it was the first thing we went after.

Satan tried his best to tempt Jesus with being relevant or spectacular.  Neither of those worked.  In one final attempt, Satan tempted Jesus with power – to seek first his own kingdom.  I find this somewhat fascinating since Jesus was the Son of God.  The Son of God who was sovereign over the heavens and the earth.  Jesus was heir to the eternal kingdom of the Father.  Satan could not offer him what was already his by divine right.  Actually though, what Satan tried to do was to distract Jesus with a lie – you can be king, ruler, now.  Which also had the implication of Jesus’ being worshipped now, since living kings or rulers, like Caesar, were worshipped while they were alive.  Jesus’ reply was an abbreviated version of the Shema, a prayer from Deuteronomy 6.  “You shall love the Lord your God” and by love, that included worship.  Full devotion was to be given to the God of Genesis and Exodus, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The demonstration of this love was to seek first the kingdom of God – the kingdom ruled by mercy and justice, especially for the poor and oppressed.  Jesus would go on to teach his disciples to love God with everything they had and to seek God’s kingdom above all else.  We should do the same.

Our third general rule of the church is this, “stay in love with God.”  We are to intentionally journey, seeking a deeper relationship with God that forms a bond of love.  From that, we are empowered to live in God’s kingdom of mercy and justice while also seeking to bring others into it.  This is the purpose of this one life we have been given.  To seek anything else is a temptation.

I invite you to take time and read each of the scriptures above followed by reflection on the questions below.  Pause and reflect upon the kingdom that you are living in.  Lastly, I pray that God bless the reading of God’s Word and the meditations of your heart.