Matthew 6:25-34 Do Not Worry...Really???

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 any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[a]?
²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ 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? ³¹ 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.

So...If we are to seek and serve God and not pursue or store up material things, who is going to pay the bills? There are no free lunches right? We still need food and drink and clothing and a roof over our heads...and maybe some health insurance wouldn't hurt either now that I think about it. 

So where is all that going to come from? It stopped raining manna in the desert centuries ago. The answer, according to Jesus, is simple and obvious. If you seek and serve God, He is going to take care of you.

What does Jesus say? "Don't worry". Worrying about your personal or financial condition is a waste of time and energy. After all, do the birds eat? Who feeds them? It's God.  And what about the flowers? Do they worry about what they will wear? The answer is no. God made them and they are already beautiful. 

So what's Jesus' point? If God cares so much about flowers and birds that are here today and gone tomorrow, then how much more must He care about us - right? It's just not productive to worry about material things or what might happen tomorrow. God knows what we need and He knows what we will need. He will take care of us. 

So, rather than worry, we need to spend our time seeking Him and pursuing His righteousness. If we do these things, then all that other stuff that preoccupies us so much of the time will be taken care of by Him. As Jesus says, "each day has enough trouble of its own." We need to leave tomorrow in God's hands.

-Do you believe that? Do you practice it...or do you worry?

It takes some faith not to worry, but as Jesus said, worrying will not fix a problem. God did give us all brains. There are things we can take care of ourselves. But there are also things that are totally out of our control - things that we must leave in God's hands - things that we cannot change of our own power. 

-So should we prepare for tomorrow - for the future? Is being willing to dress like flowers and eat like birds enough to get us through this life, especially in our time? 

Again, God gave us brains and the ingenuity to help us take care of our selves in cooperation with His gifting. If we genuinely seek Him and His righteousness, we will be all right.

-But what if it kills me?

Silly Christian. What if it does?