25/11/2019
Matthew 6:25-34(NIV)
25. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?
26. Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
27. Can anyone of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
28. “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.
30. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
31. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32. For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
33. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
God doesn’t want us to worry. When we go back to the disciples asking Jesus to teach them how to pray- Jesus mentioned in the prayer “give us today our daily bread” which focuses on the fact that Jesus knows that we have needs for each day. Even when we look at the Israelites, when manna was falling from heaven, God told them that they didn’t have to store it because He had made provision for each day. Let us learn to not focus on the situation but to focus on the fact that the God we serve cares for us.
In verse 27, God is telling us to relax because anxiety changes nothing. Being anxious will not solve anything, but rather trust and have faith that it will be done.
God knows the things that we need, but He asks us first to seek His Kingdom, and so our priority should be to seek His Kingdom and not our needs. When God cares for you, you will know what He wants to do for you, but you’ve got to ask yourself, are you seeking the resource or the source?
Jesus says He is the way, the truth, and the life. When you go after the resource, you do your own thing, but when you seek the Kingdom, what you desire will seek you.
We need to live a life lead by the Spirit while trusting that He will lead us precisely to where God sees us. Worrying about tomorrow only robs you of your joy today, and so by choosing not to be anxious about tomorrow, you want to give your best today; to enjoy the now.
The Word admonishes us to not worry about tomorrow because the Spirit of God doesn’t want us to compromise what we see in the world with what we know the Word of God says. If you know what God has said- you will believe in His Word.
We need to ask ourselves what is our specific priority because those that make the Kingdom their priority have all their needs taken care of. Take care of God’s Kingdom, and He’ll take care of you.
However one needs to remember that you can have all your needs met, but if you don’t have the Kingdom, you’ll remain the same. Believe before seeing instead of waiting to see to believe.
We should take life step by step and enjoy every moment. The Kingdom of God has its principles and its ways, so we should seek to live out the ways of the Kingdom if we want to see its benefits at work in our lives.
As Christians, faith is the currency we use. We believe in a God we haven’t seen; we’ve heard of Him, but we are called to believe in Him in order to experience Him and so by worrying we are limiting His power in our lives. Realize that God knows your needs and that just as a good father will provide for the needs of his children, so will He provide for you, especially when He knows you’re pursuing the needs of His heart.
Realize that not only does God have the right way but He also has the better way and so it’s not about what you’re looking for but instead how you’re looking for it. You work from a place of rest when you trust In God, for He knows our needs more than we do.
In exodus 2:24, the Bible says that God heard the groaning of His people, and He remembered His covenant with them. He’s the kind of Provider who understands even the words you do not say because He knows them and He’s aware of them before your mind even conceives them. Sometimes our joy and comfort come from the income that we have, and so we trust in it but what happens when all of that stops? There’s a certain pretense that comes with trusting God when things are working out for us.
Worrying happens when a person can’t find peace or tranquillity. It’s a state of agitation and the impossibility of finding rest. A worried person is a person who is always after something, forgetting that the satisfaction of a need will bring about another need. It’s someone who is after everything but God.
Every time we worry, we show a lack of knowledge in the nature of the provider. The nature of the Provider is one that is behind the reputation of His name. God can’t let His name be put to shame. His nature doesn’t change with the change in our behavior, nor does He do things because of what we’ve done or because of who we are (see 2 Timothy 2:13). He is who He is, and He does what He does because He’s God.
The Bible says “those that know His name trust Him”. Trust is as a result of you knowing; it doesn’t just come. Every time doubt creeps in, go back to the drawing board and study God’s nature. You can doubt whatever it is that you can doubt but never doubt God’s character.
Sometimes God will bring you to the edge so that you can see and know that He is God and that He alone is your source of provision. Often than most, you can trust in what you have and lose sight of who God is and so it is the knowledge of Him who you call Provider that will cause you to worry less regardless of the situations you may face. The remedy for stress is knowing God.
Prayer request:
1. Pray and ask God to show Himself to you because you want to know Him.
2. Repent and ask God to forgive you for the times that you didn’t trust Him, request that your confidence in Him grow.
Watch || Who is Your Provider?
