Now let’s talk about seeking the kingdom of heaven. This is the greatest treasure hunt you will ever go on, and worth a lot of effort on your part. Actually, you have already begun the treasure hunt by taking seriously this Getting Ready to Go Home to Heaven curriculum. All of the Togethers of Scripture you are learning and implementing are essential parts of the kingdom of heaven – they are God’s way for relationships now and forever.

In one of His parables, Jesus likened the kingdom of heaven to a treasure hidden in someone else’s field, a treasure so valuable that the one who found it went and sold everything he owned to buy the field so he could possess the treasure.
Jesus also said in one of His greatest sermons, known as the Sermon on the Mount, “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ . . . . But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

This is an instruction for Christians to seek the kingdom together. (Note the word “we’ in “What shall we eat?”)

Pursuing the kingdom of God together is great preparation for a higher quality of life in heaven. These Togethers of Scripture you are studying and implementing will help you search out the wonderful aspects that living in God’s society has to offer. Those who now develop skills in seeking the kingdom of heaven and God’s righteousness will have greater skills to seek the kingdom of heaven and additional aspects of God’s righteousness in heaven.

When you accepted Jesus Christ into your life by believing He died for you to cover your sinfulness with His righteousness, you needed to accept Him as both Savior and Lord. At that moment, you became a citizen of heaven. You have dual citizenship – in heaven and in your country. But, from now on, your primary citizenship is to be in heaven. Philippians 3:20 says it best: “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, . . .”
We must help one another live like heaven exists and is our home country. We must help one another look forward to heaven after we die so much so that heaven gets to be always in our minds. Consciously seeking the kingdom through daily, or at least weekly, assertive action to implement some of the Togethers will make heaven more real for you.

Jesus taught us that we should ask God that His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Obviously, that does not mean praying that the physical aspects of heaven come, but that relationships now become more like heaven’s loving society. We might not be in heaven yet, but its society of biblical relationships with God and with one another is available now. Christians in close, intimate fellowship can pursue that perfect society together.

Certainly, loving relationships that approach the standard of heaven are far more to be valued than experiences. The best vacation can easily be ruined by troublesome interactions between people, either those we are on vacation with or the waiter at the restaurant. From this, we can conclude that seeking now the nature of loving relationships in heaven is worth more than just waiting to see the physical aspects of heaven.

And, so, seeking the kingdom of heaven now is much more than acquiring Bible knowledge or going to church. As valuable as those things are, they are only the beginning of the hunt for heaven’s treasures. Bible application in relationships is the obedience that opens up the vision of heavenly relationships. And, church is where we might find people for our Christian Inner Circles where loving obedience to the Bible’s instructions for relationships with other believers can blossom into something like heaven.

Little by little, the things of this world should become less important and the treasures of heaven-like relationships should take over our lives. Many of the Togethers you are learning about help you leave something of this world behind, say, love of money, and pick up one of the treasures of heavenly society, such as being more available to look out for the needs of others.

It is like this. A citizen of heaven who earnestly sought the kingdom of God before death meets up with a friend who showed little interest in seeking the kingdom of heaven. The first asks the second, “Come with me to meet a few fascinating Christians who lived during the Dark Ages in Europe.” The second responds with contentment: “No, I’m good. You go ahead.”

I hope you don’t want to be like this second person who did not seek the kingdom of heaven much before he or she died and will not have the strong tendency to savor ever more deeply the relationships in heaven with their more unlimited expressions of love.

I want to help you diligently seek the kingdom of heaven and find new treasures in the way God wants you to live, especially treasures in your relationship with God and treasures in your relationships with Christians, the citizens of heaven.

First, start by declaring your citizenship in heaven and your loyalty to God.
In a kingdom, nothing is more important than loyalty to the king. To seek the kingdom of heaven means to strive to know how the King thinks and feels about things. Then it progresses into how the King wants his subjects to live individually, and, even more importantly, as citizens together to make his kingdom all He wants it to be. Essentially, seeking the kingdom means to love God more and more.
This is the greatest commandment, found in Mark 12, verse 30, which says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

Seeking the kingdom also means to delight in the King. Psalm 37:4 gives us a goal for now and the way it will automatically be in heaven: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Seek to grow in your delight in God. One way to do this is to think of something that truly makes you happy and then meditate until God Himself makes you happier than that something.

Perhaps having a lot of money really makes you happy. That’s not all bad, as long as you do not love it. However, God can make you much happier than money. Think of the most luxurious thing money could buy and compare it with heaven. If you had to choose, which would you take? Heaven, of course.

Also consider that a king would surely prefer to be around people who took his kingdom seriously. Seeking the kingdom of heaven will enhance your companionship with God forever and ever.

Seeking the kingdom of heaven means more than just listening to these audio files of the Getting Ready to Go Home to Heaven curriculum. A little growth will happen in your spirit by just learning, but you want to focus on doing what these Togethers tell you – how God wants you to relate to Him and other Christians. This is what will change you dramatically and give you a much better experience in heaven forever.

So, listen and implement the four courses covering all 65 of the Togethers of Scripture over and over again. If you have just a little time before death ushers you into the paradise of heaven or a whole lot of time left, nothing is as valuable as preparing for heaven by seeking the kingdom. In prayer, invite the Holy Spirit to lead you to give this high priority for your time and effort.

Seeking the kingdom of heaven cannot be an individual pursuit. You must do it primarily with your Christian friends and Christian family members. As I will say over and over again, these close, more open and honest Christian relationships possess power to change your spirit through obedience to the Scriptures of the Togethers. The Togethers are crucibles for transformation into exceptional Christlikeness.

Where people know one another much more intimately, there will be far more opportunities to seek the kingdom together. When there are disagreements, quarrels, different priorities, different gifts, different favorite Bible passages, or different mentors, the peace of the kingdom will be challenged. Obedient Christian friends, family members and spouses cannot so easily escape such pressures through ignoring the problems. Because of the very special and important nature of friendship and family relations, these are opportunities to achieve a higher level of the love of the kingdom of God.

Seeking the kingdom and its righteousness is preparing for your move to heaven someday. Just like a family moving to the United States from a country with a very different culture, you will be going to heaven where its ways are the ways of love and living instructed in the Bible. I want you to be wise and seek kingdom ways now so that when you get there you will have an increased experience of heaven’s blessings. Seeking the kingdom now will leave a whole lot less to learn when you get started in heaven, and you will be more prepared to enter into the joys in heaven of relationships with God and others.

We can now be seeking new ways to think like God and act as the King commands. For example, we can today discover the joy of love that is strong enough to overlook being hurt, and develop our ability to seek additional righteousness. This ability to seek the righteousness of the kingdom of God will even be useful in heaven for those of us who develop it.

There will very likely be new things in heaven. Why would we think that heaven would not have a lot more to offer than even the very best Christian life on earth? Do we think that the Bible reveals everything about God? There are surely more righteous qualities of our Lord to be revealed, for which we will seek in heaven.
Seeking develops curiosity. God is so creative that it is very likely that He adds things to heaven continually. Not just new creatures, but new ways of enhancing one another’s lives – things we could not imagine now no matter how hard we try or how close to God we become. He is, after all, The Creator.

If you earnestly seek all aspects of the kingdom of heaven now, you will have the ability to seek more and more things of heaven when you get there. You will have minds practiced in the skill and tendency to look for more from God. You will not be of those who are just content knowing a portion of the kingdom of heaven. If before death, you put effort into diligently seeking the kingdom of heaven and finding new treasures in the way God wants you to handle things, then in heaven you will be more able to search out heaven and its new and more fantastic opportunities.

Pursue the kingdom of heaven together, searching out every hidden corner of the realm. Find all that living in God’s society has to offer. Pursue your birthrights as born-again citizens.

Matt 6:33; Phil 3:20-21; Heb 12:28

Prayer to Embrace this Together
O Sovereign God, I and those in my Christian Inner Circle will need Your help to grow our spirits to assertively explore Your kingdom together while we live in the kingdom of darkness. Help us to yield to the work of the Holy Spirit for all of us to give You more glory in the way we cherish the ways of Your kingdom.
Please help us all to become more like Jesus and increasingly live the values and ways of the kingdom of heaven. Our priority is to seek the King – our Lord Jesus. Help us to see and understand Him from the pages of the Bible. Allow Jesus, the King of the kingdom, who lives inside of us individually and corporately to express Himself in our Christian Inner Circles and our dealings with the larger church and the world.
May our lives worship You more because we value Your kingdom and Your ways above all else. Therefore, help us to help one another seek the kingdom with great energy that we might love You with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths.
Since the devil is quite active to do all he can to hold back the kingdom of heaven on earth, help us to help one another keep in mind that the kingdom is now and its ways our ways already. Satan has turned Christianity to be such an individualized faith that we need your help to remember that the kingdom of God is living dependent upon You and independently together.
Help us all to prepare for heaven by growing more completely to seek and incorporate into our living the kingdom of heaven and its ways. We want to go to heaven more prepared for the society of heaven and its rewards.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Your Spirit is most easily transformed in community. The tools below can facilitate your growth as you meet with those you are in close Christian relationship with.

These are some of the possible benefits in heaven we will be seeking today by opening our minds to the Holy Spirit regarding seeking the kingdom of God together.
We will develop greater skill to understand the kingdom of heaven when we arrive, especially the standards of love for God and one another.

We will be more ready to seek and find deeper blessings in heaven, including additional aspects of God’s righteousness to bring into our lives.

We will enhance our relationship with the King of the Kingdom and improve our companionship with God forever.

Sanctification Booster #1:

Let’s take time now to list as many contrasts of the kingdom of God and our secular and church cultures. (Examples: monetary prosperity vs spiritual prosperity and ignoring the needs of Christians with whom we are close vs. paying so much attention to “privacy” that we do not take notice of the struggles of other Christians).

Sanctification Booster #2:

Let’s take time now to list as many expressions of love in the kingdom of God as we can without first referring to the list of the Togethers of Scripture. Then, read through that list at ChristiansTogether.org.

Sanctification Booster #3:

Let’s take time now to list the behaviors that Christians can value and find more happiness than joy in than their relationship with God by eliminating them and living more faithfully in the kingdom of heaven. Are there any church behaviors that should be in this list?

Sanctification Booster #4:

List what aspects of the kingdom of heaven can be sought now, before we die. (Duplication with things already listed is okay and will just reinforce the Holy Spirit’s call to seek them.)