'Blessed Are Those Who “Look to the Lord and His Strength; Seek His Face Always,” for Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.’

“Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.” – 1 Chronicles 16:11 NIV

There are many encouraging verses in the Bible like Lamentations 3:22-23 and Isaiah 41:10, which state:

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23)

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10)

However, 1 Corinthians 16:11 is one of the most important verses in the Bible, which requires action for everyone rather than encouraging. This is because the word of God declares:

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. (1 John 4:1-3)

Therefore, while we are applying 1 Corinthians 16:11, we should overcome the world as well, for “we know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.” (1 John 5:19) We also can see that every followers of Jesus Christ overcomes the world in 1 John 5:1-5, which declares:

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

If we join Galatians 6:8 NLT and Romans 6:23 NLT together, then it goes like this: “Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” These verses mean that abiding the world leads us to death, but abiding the Spirit of God leads us to eternal life. Thus, we must not love the world, if we have committed our lives before Christ and want to gain the eternal life that those verses are talking about. The eternal should be our destiny, for our citizenship is in heaven! (Philippians 3:20-21, 2 Corinthians 5:1)

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever. (1 John 2:15-17)

Since Matthew 25:31-34 declares: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world,”— we ought to seek God and concentrate on the eternal kingdom of heaven rather than the world; to do the will of God until the end of the age. This is because Matthew 7:21 says:

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

In other words, we could say, ‘blessed are those who “look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always,” for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’