Prosperity hack vs Act of love: Your calling
Today’s post was sparked by a line I saw in the Bible app (Rachel G. Scott & Friends):
“Love isn't defined by feelings or emotions nor by our own interpretation. It's defined by obedience to God's commands.”
That sentence is both comforting and confronting.
Comforting, because it rescues love from the instability of mood.
Confronting, because it exposes how often we’ve called something “love” simply because it felt sincere.
If love is defined by obedience, then love isn’t primarily something you fall into. Love is something you align to. And that brings me to one of Jesus’ most quoted teachings—often used like a strategy:
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
— Matthew 6:33 (NIV)
Let’s be honest: many people treat this verse like a prosperity hack.
Do this first… and then God will add the rest.
But what if we’ve been reading it too shallowly?
What if “seek first” is not a technique to get “things”… but an act of love? Because what you seek first is what you love most. Not what you say you love most. What you prioritise when life gets loud.
Seeking first is obedience-love
If Rachel’s line is true - and it is - then love isn’t defined by our interpretation. It’s defined by God’s command. Which means “seek first” isn’t a suggestion for the super-spiritual. It’s a blueprint for ordered love.
Seeking first is what love looks like when it becomes obedient.
It means God gets the first portion of your attention before anxiety does. The first portion of your decisions before desire does. The first portion of your loyalty before people-pleasing does. And once the order is right, the other loves stop collapsing into their distorted forms.
Storge: familiar love becomes hospitality
Storge is beautiful - family love, belonging, comfort. But when it isn’t anchored in God, familiarity can become a fence. “Us vs them.” Closed circles. Seeking first the Kingdom turns Storge outward. It keeps home warm without making it tribal.
Philia: friendship becomes humble truth
Philia is shoulder-to-shoulder love - shared pursuit. But even friendship can become pride when shared truth becomes superiority. Seeking first humbles Philia. It makes friends more teachable, less performative.
Eros: desire becomes disciplined
Eros is spark, attraction, creation-energy. God made it. But without righteousness, desire becomes its own compass - and good things become destructive things. Seeking first doesn’t cancel desire. It disciplines it. Passion becomes promise, not appetite.
Philautia: self-love becomes stewardship
Self-love without God becomes self-worship.
Self-love with God becomes stewardship.
Seeking first stabilises identity. You stop using outcomes and relationships to prove you matter. You start living from being held.
Agape: the pivot becomes practical
Agape is love that moves first - the love of the cross. But Agape doesn’t flow through a life governed by fear, control, or constant demand. Seeking first is how Agape becomes livable. It is obedience-love in motion. And that’s why Jesus frames “seek first” in the context of worry. Because worry is what happens when love is disordered.
So here’s the question this verse asks you - not as a hack, but as a calling:
What gets your first devotion?
Your first attention?
Your first trust?
Your first obedience?
Before you chase outcomes, seek first.
Before you demand answers, seek first.
Before you react, seek first.
Before you try to be loved, seek first.
Not as superstition. As love.
Because if love is defined by obedience to God’s commands, then seeking first is not optional - it’s foundational.
And here’s the “all these things” part - without the gimmick:
When love is rightly ordered, life becomes less frantic. Decisions become clearer. Relationships become cleaner. Work becomes worship. And what you truly need for the assignment you’ve been given begins to arrive as provision instead of obsession.
Love isn’t defined by feeling. Love is defined by obedience.
Seek first... One, Perfect. Love.
