If God so clothes the grass of the field…, will He not much
more clothe you…? —Matthew 6:30
{CHAMBERS} “A
simple statement of Jesus is always a puzzle to us because we will not be
simple. How can we maintain the simplicity of Jesus so that we may understand
Him? By receiving His Spirit, recognizing and relying on Him, and obeying Him
as He brings us the truth of His Word, life will become amazingly simple. […]
Every time we lose ground in our fellowship with God, it is because we have disrespectfully
thought that we knew better than Jesus Christ. We have allowed “the cares of
this world” to enter in (Matthew 13:22), while forgetting the “much more” of
our heavenly Father. “Look at the birds of the air…” (Matthew 6:26). Their
function is to obey the instincts God placed within them, and God watches over
them. Jesus said that if you have the right relationship with Him and will obey
His Spirit within you, then God will care for your “feathers” too. “Consider
the lilies of the field…” (Matthew 6:28). They grow where they are planted.
Many of us refuse to grow where God plants us. […] Jesus said if we would obey
the life of God within us, He would look after all other things. Did Jesus
Christ lie to us?”
{ELGIN} What is the “much more” Jesus was referring
to exactly? I guess the interpretation
depends upon the culture that you live in.
In our culture, living lives of relative ease, "much more" can look like the
angst you feel over buying a new house with four bedrooms and three bathrooms because
each of your children needs a room of their own. Or it could look like a family in a third world
country wondering if they will have something to eat when a new day dawns. Christians in the U.S. live in a world of
HGTV and the Food Network, trying to figure out which phone plan is best and
whether we need to buy a bigger TV with 4K resolution. Somehow, I don’t think that is what Jesus was
talking about. I think, more than
likely, Jesus was referring to our being confident that God is sovereign. Having confidence that God loves us and that His
expression of that love is Jesus Christ.
When you strip away the trappings of this world that make us different
from each other, we stand equal before the God of heaven. When a mother and father have a child who has
an illness that can take its life. The size
or resolution of their TV is not even on the radar of their lives. We should be less concerned with feathering
our nest and be more concerned with putting God first in our lives. God will take care of us. He has already proven that in Jesus. We tend not to primarily think of our lives in
terms of the “then and there” but more in the “here and now”. But, if we can put the “here and now” in the
context of the “there and then” how we respond to the circumstances of day to
day living will change. (Philippians 4:6-7) “Do not be anxious
about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with
thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which
transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus.” What you ask God for is a
reflection of where your devotions lie.
So put another way, what Jesus was saying in Matthew 6 was – “Trust God”
see Proverbs 3:5-6.
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