…do not worry about your
life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you
will put on. —Matthew 6:25
“Jesus summed up commonsense
carefulness in the life of a disciple as unbelief. If we have received the
Spirit of God, He will squeeze right through our lives, as if to ask, “Now
where do I come into this relationship, this vacation you have planned, or
these new books you want to read?” And He always presses the point until we
learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first,
there is confusion. “…do not worry about your life….” Don’t take the pressure
of your provision upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief;
worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details
of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us. Have
you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the Word He puts in us? Is it the
devil? No— “the cares of this world” (Matthew 13:22).” The greatest word of
Jesus to His disciples is abandon.” CHAMBERS
Most of the people who are
reading this are not worried about where their next meal will come from. Spending time with people who have nothing,
as we have, has given us a new perspective on our own lives. We were born into a land of abundance, where
even those who “have not” are rich compared to much of the rest of the
world. People in the United States spent
more on their pets than the entire gross domestic product of many nations, much
more. So it is, you see, a matter of
perspective. And how do you gain the
right perspective? By looking through
the prism of the Word with spiritual eyes. Paul wrote, (Ephesians 1:18-19) “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be
enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the
riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably
great power for us who believe.” In Matthew 25, both the “sheep” (Christians) and
the “goats” (non-Christians) asked the same question, “Lord, when did we see
you?” The reason you worry about
anything is because you are viewing the world's circumstances through natural eyes with a
natural understanding. Since most of what you face is out of your control and
since the flesh is never satisfied, responding with the natural with natural
means and methods will always lead to doubt and worry.
But God is sovereign over all. That
being true, and it is, if your trust, your faith, your confidence is in Him,
there is no reason to worry.
Something I found interesting
while in Haiti. When the Haitian people,
who have nothing, get more than they need for the moment, they share the “excess”
with others who are also in need. There
is something to be learned in that. Most of us are concerned with “building bigger barns” (Luke
12:16-21) What is interesting in that parable is the problem was not that
the man had abundance, the problem was what the man did with it. In 2014 people in the U.S spent $21.4
(Billion dollars) for their pets. That
is 2 ½ times the gross domestic product of Haiti just to feed pets. Have you heard the term "fur-baby"? Think about the implications of that kind of thinking. When did we see you Lord? I want to encourage you to consider your
life. God’s admonition to us spans the
full spectrum of personal health and wealth. (Matthew 6:25,27) “Is not life more than food, and the body more
than clothes? … Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”
Whether you are Haitian or living in the U.S. or in some other land, we all need
to rest in the truth that God is sovereign.
And in the light of that, get the proper perspective on this life on
earth. CHARLEY
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely
dim, in the light of His glory and grace”
Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus
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