Center

Matthew 6:25-34 (sections thereof) Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life - what you eat or drink - or your body - what you will wear.  Is your life more than food and body more than clothes?

(Living is more than eating and the body more than dressing up. The Voice)

But seek first his (God's) kingdom and his righteousness and these things (life needs) will be given to you as well. 

Jesus is appealing us to put our lives in order, placing our priorities in life under the umbrella of God's kingdom.  His use of certain words emphasizes this prioritizing.  When he says "seek" - zeteo - he is intoning a serious pursuit of a goal.  It means to strive in a goal-oriented way.  And, of course, he highlights God's kingdom as the goal, indicating God's overall and encompassing authority over our lives.

But not just the kingdom, but its righteousness - it's rightness.  Diakino is that righteousness, indicating a condition acceptable to God.  It means to be "right," as God intended for us. This correctness of character is to be a pursuit of thinking, feeling and acting.  It is to be as we should be, in general, and, specifically, in relationship to God.  When I seek righteousness, then my true self, my God-intended self would be developed and completed in me.  If righteousness in character, then this pursuit is identity formation.

What a statement to make:  "I am becoming righteous." (as I should be.) Yet it must be true because righteous living will come no other way.  (A good tree bears good fruit.)

All this time, we have been trying to go by the rules when the rules cause nothing in us.  At most, they are checkpoints along the way;  maybe more like safeguards for a free field of play.  

Because Christ is my righteousness-giver and my righteousness-model, he is the solution for my identity change.  Who am I?  What is Christ in me?  Christ alone.  Christ, author and finisher of my faith.  Every question I have about my pursuits should be turned towards Christ-influence of those pursuits.  I can only operate in pursuit of the kingdom by me finally getting "right," deep into my center.