We read in Holy Scripture, “ But seek first God’s Kingdom and his righteousness” (Matthew 6: 33). Yet, how many of us that profess to be Christian, or believers in God, by our thoughts and through our actions, apparently pay not a whit of attention to this sage advice. The proximate dilemma that this material world presents, is how to one degree or another, it has a way of distracting us as well as enticing us to concentrate our minds and actions upon all sorts of things, that have little or nothing to do with being in harmony with the kingdom of God. This then is the very reason, why we have so much violence, disharmony, hatred, discord, and rebellion in this world, because the vast majority of humankind do not comprehend what their highest duty is and are also confused about such.
In order then to get to where we ought to be, the very first thing that we need to concentrate our efforts upon, is that which is our highest duty, above all. In short, if we do not comprehend, that life should consist of priorities, goals, and the duties that are incumbent upon each one of us, of which, our primary purpose then should be to reason out what those priorities, goals, and duties should actually be, then we have failed in our very first duty. We are not meant to be automatons, and further to the point, we are not meant to mindlessly follow what has come before; but rather we are meant to utilize our free thinking minds to discover or to re-discover what we ought to be about.
There are many people that we will meet, friend or foe, that will tell us what our duties should be, of which, if we are fortunate, this advice will be sound; and if not so fortunate, this advice when followed, will serve to take us in the wrong direction. Nevertheless, it is our duty to recognize that those that question nothing, and therefore accept everything, are not going to fare well in much of anything. We need, then, to take the responsibility to be discriminating in our life, for in the end, we each are the individuals that must answer for the life that we have so lived, for better or for worse. That is why, we must focus upon the purpose of our being, so as to recognize that when two duties, seemingly contradict one another, that there then thus has to be a higher duty, that supersedes those that are contradictory to one another.
The problem that we so have is that when we know what we believe to be, our highest duty, but yet this duty clearly contradicts with another duty; is that so many of us, try to reason such things through, by believing that within a given duty, there are occasionally exceptions to that duty – without comprehending that this has to be in error. There is, in the end, only one Highest duty, and that duty has no contradictions to it, ever. While the words of that Highest duty, will be somewhat different, depending upon the background and the individuality of a given person – yet, in essence it will always be the same – for that Highest duty is to love God by displaying that love through our fair, just, and charitable actions with one another.