September 22nd
Live
Matthew 6:25–34 (NLT)
25“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food and your body more than clothing?
26Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? 27Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?
28“Why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, 29yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 30And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?
I’m an anxious person. Perhaps this is why these verses have meant so much to me over the years. Before reading further, I want to ask you to do something we rarely do when reading this passage. Don’t read any further until you go back and read the passage – AND ANSWER FOR YOURSELF THE QUESTIONS JESUS ASKS!
[Pause for you to answer the questions…]
If you are like me, I not only felt a little silly answering those questions. I felt rather foolish.
What Jesus is getting at has everything to do with how we understand the world that God created, his care for creation and all that is in it, and his capacity to take care of and provide for all that he has made – including you and me.
One of the key words in this section is the word “enough.” Who of us never asks “will we have enough?” Is there “enough to go around?”
Do you recall the earlier devotion around John 10:10? How we pondered the depth of that word “abundant?” Let me refresh your memory. The Greek word means…
“In a manner marked by great quantity, copiously, extraordinary, remarkable, profuse, outstanding, exceedingly, superior, superabundant, beyond.”
This is the nature of God’s creation because this is the nature of God. Whatever our need, the supplier has an eternal and endless supply – and he does not hold back.
Let’s pray this prayer together…
Heavenly Father, please grant by your Spirit that I would begin to see you and your creation not in terms of scarcity, the condition of never being enough. But in terms of who you are and all you are – superabundant, overflowing, without end or limit. There is more than enough because that is who you are.
