Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 197th episode. In this episode we’re going to continue our study of the book of Matthew. We are finishing chapter 6. The theme of this chapter is Jesus warning His disciples against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. In the previous episodes we discussed giving to the needy, the Lord’s prayer, the importance of forgiving others, fasting, and the dangers of duplicity. Jesus warned his followers to resist the temptation of using charitable action to garner praise for themselves — a practice common among the religious leaders. He also gave them a template for prayer which mimicked the Ten Commandments in its priorities and taught them to honor God from a posture of humility. We finished the previous episode with a discussion of Christ’s admonition against serving both God and mammon. He said we simply cannot do it.
In this episode we’re going to talk about the sin of excessive anxiety. I want to be clear I’m not suggesting the disorder of anxiety is a sin. Rather I’m pointing to the spirit of fear which follows a lack of faith and an unhealthy attachment to the things of this world. Let’s open our study by reading verses 25-34:
Mat 6:25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Mat 6:26 “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
Mat 6:27 “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?
Mat 6:28 “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,
Mat 6:29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
Mat 6:30 “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
Mat 6:31 “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’
Mat 6:32 “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
Mat 6:33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Mat 6:34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Jesus took anxiety seriously and He warned His disciples against it frequently. He also gave them the tools and knowledge requisite to avoid it. In the mind of Christ, excessive worry meant your treasure and your heart was set on this world rather than on the things of God. This isn’t to say He lacks care for the things you need to live in this world — in fact He verbally points out how the Father knows we need these things and He will provide for us. This idea of divine providence might sound like a trite form of wish-fulfillment, but humanity has been able to survive against the odds in this hostile world in an unbroken chain for millennia. Such a perfect continuity of life amidst existential risk and the threat of extinction is nothing short of miraculous.
Jesus begins teaching about anxiety by commanding His disciples to take no thought for their lives, for what they will eat or drink, nor for their clothing. The kind of thought prohibited here is thought which causes you to be tormented or disquieted by anxiety. It’s okay to strategize how you will get your food, clothing, and shelter. It’s expected that you’ll do the work necessary to earn these things. But if your strategy begins to fail or if some unforeseen circumstance arises, Jesus is simply telling you to remain calm. Sleepless nights spent worrying about your future or your family’s future is what He’s talking about here. This kind of worrying is bad for your relationships with other people and it’s bad for your relationship with God.
The spirit of fear can motivate you to lie or to take advantage of other people. This kind of anxiety is ultimately sourced in a mistrust or disbelief in God’s promises. We already know God promised all necessary goods for life and godliness to the people who belong to Him. He didn’t promise excess but He also promised more than privation. He promised we shall be fed, not feasted. To doubt the promises of God is to doubt His wisdom, faithfulness, and goodness — and this is in principle why worldly anxiety is a sin. Part of trusting God’s providence means refusing to compromise your godly mode-of-being in an effort acquire provisions.
As followers of Christ we’re expected to be diligent in our calling and prudent in the way we steward our expenses. Scripture says, “poor is he who works with a negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” In addition to honest work, we must pray routinely for our daily bread and acknowledge God as the source of good things. If these methods for acquiring our necessary goods fail, then we must turn to the community and ask for relief.
Being surrounded by a faith-based community of people who love you is worth more than much gold. It’s unbecoming of a Christian to be so proud that you won’t ask for help when you need it. The Church doesn’t function properly unless the people who compose it are working to help each other through life. God allows us to see glimpses of Himself within us and others when this process of benevolence is taking place. If you’re too proud to let it happen then you’re working in cross-purposes to the will of God.
Part of being set free from the anxiety of scarcity is always remembering God knows how to give what we want even when we don’t know how to get what we need. God provides for you and upholds everything around you even while you sleep — so it’s a grace of God that you might relax and sleep more easily once you understand and accept this. Most Christians understand that sin forms a barrier between themselves and God in much the same way Adam and Eve put on the barrier of clothes to conceal their shame after the Fall. But doubting the goodness or the ability of God to provide for you as an equally certain way to deprive yourself of the joy of the Lord.
It takes a lot of faith to refer your own life to God and to trust Him to either lengthen or shorten it. I think it takes more than faith, it also takes a precise and well-founded theology. Understanding and accepting that God has a predestined design for your life and the lives of those around you is crucial here. There is only so much you can do and sometimes it will look like you can do nothing. In these moments when your circumstances are out of your control it’s quite stabilizing to realize they remain under God’s control. You’re not being tossed in the waves of chaos if you belong to Jesus Christ. All of this is easier said than done. When the Israelites were wandering through the wilderness for 40 years their clothes never wore out and they never lacked for sustenance — and yet even amidst these overtly miraculous provisions they still found it difficult to trust God for their safety.
Jesus also warns us against taking thought for tomorrow or worrying about tomorrow. Again this is not an injunction against prudence — rather it’s an injunction to draft your plans for the future with humility. The most obvious reason we should not boast of tomorrow nor worry over it is because we don’t actually know whether it’s coming. You may die tonight. A realistic hold on your own fragility is fundamental to the maintenance of your humility. God is merciful to us because He remembers our frame and He knows that we are dust — we should be humble because we remember our own frames and we know that we are dust.
The passage of scripture we’re studying would remain perfectly true if Jesus simply commanded us to stop worrying and then was done with it. But He takes the time to walk us through some comforting thoughts and some chains of reasoning to further bolster us against the creep of anxiety. I think He does this because He understands part of being human is struggling with fears which are not so easily dispelled. One of the strategies you can employ to help a person calm down is to slowly call to remembrance why panic is unreasonable in the given circumstance. Jesus is doing something similar here when He says, “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”
God created all things and God upholds all things so He above all else understands the value difference between life and livelihood. Yes it’s true livelihood is required to sustain life, but the purpose of livelihood is aimed at life. People often reverse this idea and think the purpose of life is aimed at livelihood. The life that is in you comes from the breath of God. You could eat the finest food in the world and adorn yourself with the finest clothes and these things would still be from the earth. Understanding life as being the breath of God helps you to value it properly. It also helps dissolve the imagined distinctions between rich and poor. Life is immeasurably more valuable than the finest material goods and therefore anyone who has life is valuable regardless of their material status.
If God is able and willing to give you life without even your slightest awareness of Him, then what is He willing to do to help you sustain it? It’s interesting to me how some people easily trust God with their souls and their eternities but struggle to trust Him with the present moment. Perhaps this is because the present moment feels more real and more consequential to our well-being. This perception is, of course, a logical fallacy considering how nothing could be more consequential for our well-being than our eternity.
There is no single person on the planet who can create a computer mouse from nothing. Creating a computer mouse requires knowledge of petroleum refinement, export, and engineering. It requires knowledge of computational systems themselves as well as knowledge of how light behaves. The computer mouse is the product of a sort of hive-mind of disparate experts working together to create it. Almost everything around you is like this. You didn’t create any of it — there is likely so single person who did. All of our infrastructure and surroundings have been shaped and crafted through relationships of individuals working in community.
Analyzing this truth barely scratches the surface of the near-infinite regress of causal chains that led up to you putting a fork of food into your mouth. That’s what Jesus means when He says God is in control and you can’t make a difference by worrying about it. Your work-ethic plays a certain role in being able to dress yourself and feed yourself — but if you think you’re doing this on your own then you just haven’t thought about it long enough.
There are several instances in scripture where humanity is instructed to learn about God from the creation. This kind of teaching from the creation is called general revelation. God’s glory is reflected in the things which He has made. It helps you understand how badly our fallen perspective is distorted once you realize we are quite literally surrounded by a creation which testifies of God — and yet we remain tempted by our proclivities toward idolatry and secularism. In this passage Jesus instructs His followers to behold the fowls of the air and consider the lilies of the field. Once again He’s encouraging them to look around and learn from the creation. He wants them to observe the creatures’ dependence on God’s common providence.
In the case of the fowls it would have been rare for any of them to go without food despite almost never being fed by men. The fowls needed a lot of food and humanity wouldn’t have known how they got it. Jesus communicates to His followers it is their heavenly Father who feeds the fowls — and that God knows the wild fowl of the mountains better than they know their own pets. It’s also important to note how many of these creatures make no provision for the future. Their daily bread is quite actually given to them every day and if it ceased they would die. So this kind of daily dependence on the sustenance of God is instructive for those who struggle with anxiety about the future.
Jesus continues reasoning with His followers by asking them: are you not more valuable to God than the fowls of the air? God loves His creation. He knows it and He loves it more than you do. Even so, humans are counted in the sight of God as higher order beings. Human beings are made in the image of God and so they are valued higher than the animals — but they are also given a higher burden of responsibility. Animals cannot sin and so animals cannot be separated from God like humans and angels can. Animals never fall out of sync with God’s will. The prophet Jeremiah remarked how even the storks know their seasons and even the birds observe the time of their migration — but God’s people do not know the ordinance of the Lord.
The sparrow’s daily dependence on God’s providence is the key to her merry life. It would be naive to suggest her existential situation is any better than our own in terms of things which could happen. We could die in a car accident, she could be eaten by a predator. I believe there exists a mode of being which is both carefree and determined. Understanding and accepting the sovereignty of God sets you at liberty to do the best you can to become the best version of yourself possible — all the while believing if you completely fail in this project it won’t matter because God is in control anyway. I think this is the right way of thinking about it.
Some people find motivation to accomplish tremendous works in the sentiment that if you don’t show up no one else will. It’s all on you. While I firmly believe this mindset is vastly better than a mindset of victimhood — I actually think there’s a third mindset on offer which is even better. For the sake of our conversation I will call it the honoring mindset. Imagine if you could find motivation to accomplish great things not because disaster awaits should you fail — but because accomplishing great things honors God and the purpose of your life is to worship and honor God. Yes God is absolutely sovereign over everything including the smallest details. The only rational response to such sovereignty is to honor the One who holds it, to praise Him, and to worship Him.
In discussions of God’s sovereignty people often ask things like, “If God is in control then why should we bother to evangelize or advance His kingdom? If He already knows who is saved then where is our motivation?” I actually take umbrage with the question because it’s formed on the premise that we’re the ones who are doing the saving. If we don’t reach a certain person then that person is in danger of going to Hell. I don’t think this is in keeping with the sovereignty of God and the doctrine of predestination which are so well-attested to in scripture. You should work to advance the kingdom of God simply because Jesus commanded you to. Even if your work makes no difference in the final analysis of who is saved, you continue to work with fervor because doing so honors God.
When we think about God’s providence, this next passage about our clothing and the adornment of the lilies is often referenced. Jesus tells His disciples to observe the lilies of the field and see how they do not toil nor do they spin, and yet not even king Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of them. Clothing is an interesting concept in scripture because it represents several realities. The first time we see clothing mentioned is in the Garden of Eden immediately following Adam and Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit. Their eyes were opened and they realized they were naked, so they covered themselves with fig leaves. Later in the discourse God makes clothing for them out of animal hide. In their case the clothing is put on to alleviate the sense of shame and vulnerability which came with the knowledge of good and evil.
Even today we use clothing to cover up our own shame and vulnerability. It seems self-evident that articles of clothing are needed to protect our bodies from the environment. They also protect our bodies from each other. We use clothing to craft an image and if we’re not careful we can depend on it too much for a sense of self-worth. We can also fall into the trap of using clothing to project status or assume the status of others. Since clothing is indispensable for our well-being and since there are so many dimensions to its influence, we tend to invest a lot of time, effort, and resources into how we clothe ourselves. Jesus is using the raiment of the lilies as an example to show His disciples that the best clothing comes from God and they themselves should not stress over it.
One important aspect of the lilies is how frail they are. They are but grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown in to the furnace. Scripture speaks of our own flesh this way as well. Our mortal presence in this world is but a vapor, and our flesh is but grass of the field. Even the most impressive among human beings are temporary in nature and constitution — at least speaking from a mortal perspective. Much like the lilies, our time on earth is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace. The analogy of the furnace in this passage is not a reference to Hell, rather it’s a reference to the grave. We’re admonished against investing our cares in the clothing of tomorrow because for all we know tomorrow’s clothing might be grave-clothes.
I want to dial-in the correct mindset with careful precision here. God wants us to be carefree like the lilies, but carefree is importantly distinct from careless or neglectful. It’s possible to have a good work ethic while also being carefree. It’s possible to become very successful in your work while never capitulating to worldly motives for doing the work. Being able to establish this perspective requires that you’re working for the right reasons. We shouldn’t be toiling and struggling with the intention of earning clothing or material wealth. We should be working diligently because we desire obedience to the command of God and God calls us to work. Diligent work is an expression of trust in God because it’s much more tempting to be idle or lazy. When we work out of obedience to God we trust that He is going to bless the fruits of our labor. So we work because our work pleases God, and we let Him take care of the rest in terms of providing our earthly needs.
Another interesting feature of lilies is what they grow from and what they grow into. They start as a root which is lost underground in winter, yet in the spring they grow up into a glorious flower. The rise and fall of Israel —as well as other human societies — cycles in a similar way. Scripture documents God promising Israel He will be like spring rain for them and cause them to grow out of obscurity like the lilies of the field. Solomon was the wealthiest king in Israel’s history and he was well-known for studiously expending his resources to produce beauty in his surroundings as well as in his person.
Despite Solomon’s near-limitless resources, Jesus said even during his prime Solomon did not match the beauty of the lilies. The greatest of human artistic creativity is merely a humble representation of the breath-taking beauty found in God’s creation. What we learn from Solomon is that we should aspire to his wisdom in which he was unmatched by earthly mortals. We should not aspire to his glory in which he was outmatched by the lilies of the field. Knowledge and grace are eminently more desirable than outward beauty or fine clothing. All the while we must remember the beauty of the lilies, the strength of the horse, and the excellencies of every creature come from God. They are to us and to themselves what He has made them.
When it comes to clothing I think it’s worth distinguishing between fine clothing and necessary clothing. It’s not to say one is bad and the other is good — the distinction is made to help elucidate what our mindset should be in regard to each. With fine clothing we should caution against becoming proud of it, nor committing unethical actions in order to acquire it. Our self-worth should not be predicated on our fine clothing because even the finest of adornments falls short of the beauty in God’s creation. We should also understand the lack of permanence which attends fine clothing. Just like the flowers, the beauty of our clothing fades and becomes useless. The clothing itself may wear out or it may fall out of fashion and become unappealing. Clothing is mentioned specifically here but these truths apply when you invest too much of your identity in any kind of material wealth. Human beings with all their pomp and circumstance will fade away with time. The glory of God lasts forever.
The difference between fine clothing and necessary clothing is that necessary clothing speaks of things we actually need in order to survive in this life. These things are less likely to become facets of your identity but they are one of the leading causes of the sort of anxiety Jesus warns us against in this passage. Necessary clothing are the kinds of needs we are more likely to become desperate to satisfy and therefore commit sins to acquire. With regards to our necessary clothing, Jesus calls on us to cast our cares upon God for the providence of these things. If He clothes the grass in fine adornment, how much more will He shelter you in your necessary clothing? The grass of the field is here today and gone tomorrow while you are made for eternity.
Even when considering a wicked society like ancient Nineveh, God held the children of Nineveh in higher regard than He did the plant which grew up to shade Jonah. After reminding His disciples that they are worth more than the grass of the field, Jesus gives them the title: O ye of little faith. We ourselves can take consolation in this title because He’s showing that even small faith is not rejected when it comes to food and clothing from the Father. We see here that it’s possible to be a sound believer even if you’re not a strong believer. This distinction is analogous to babies of the family compared to adults. Babies are fed and taken care of despite being much weaker and much more vulnerable than adults. In a proper family the baby is given special care precisely because of his or her vulnerability. God views humanity the same way. Scripture says the Lord thinketh on the poor and the needy. The widows and orphans are a favored group in the sight of God.
In addition to Christ’s reassurance that small faith is not rejected by the Father, He also gives us the solution to anxiety which attends insecurity: namely increased faith. Anxiety about the providence of God reveals a weakness in our faith or a remnant of unbelief in us. And then after all of this Christ says something exceedingly interesting. He says, “who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?” That’s a fascinating statement when you really meditate on it. It suggests the time-span of our life is already established by God and we will live just exactly as long as He intends and not an hour longer. There are many people who feel a kind of defeatism when they consider the doctrine of predestination — but I think this is because they haven’t come into full contact with the goodness of God. God is so good that the best of all worlds is one in which He is utterly sovereign. I want the outcome to be decided and orchestrated by God because I trust Him and this reality gives me a great sense of peace and security.
Another way of understanding Christ’s statement is in regards to your maturation. “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” reads the King James. We are born into the world as infants and across time we develop into the persons we are today. We’ve learned a lot about this developmental process but much of it remains a mystery to us. We also understand how impossible it is for us to mold ourselves into whatever we want to be as if beginning from a clean slate. There seem to be patterns and structures coded into us and many of these patterns we can’t get away from. Male and female, for example. The brute force of reality teaches us that we aren’t able to change these structures simply by worrying about them. And so we trust the wisdom of God in our own creation.
It’s a wise thing to glorify God and give Him praise for whatever strength you have as a consequence of growth. Growth and development can become a source of pride if you deceive yourself into believing you deserve credit for your inheritance. This remembrance of God goes both ways in terms of your development. If there are immutable characteristics you dislike about yourself you must remember God designed you and it’s your responsibility to do the best you can with what He’s given you. Casting yourself as a victim isn’t going to change the undesired characteristic — rather it’s going to compound your misery and doom you to a cycle of needless suffering.
It’s also the case that God designed you with a purpose which means the parts of yourself which you’ve so arrogantly judged as unworthy might be crucial to what God has in store for you. Perhaps you’re living a plain life because you’re not the kind of person who can handle wealth properly and to be made rich would cause your own destruction. This gives us crucial insight into a characteristic of providence we absolutely must understand in order to achieve a carefree Christian experience.
This characteristic of providence is that providence is not tailored to our own specifications. It’s tailored to God’s specifications. Being able to trust that God knows what He’s doing and that He has a plan in regards to your material support as well as your design is not negotiable if you want to be freed from anxiety. Being humble enough to make the best of what God has given you is key to the Christian life. When you begin to view your own life as a special adventure made by God specifically for you then you will be set free from regrets. Regret no longer makes sense once you realize the road not taken doesn’t exist. Your story could not have been any other way because your story was written by God not by yourself.
When you pair this kind of humility with a commitment to improve, you’ll begin to see a lot of previously untapped potential right in front of you. Perhaps you won’t hate your job so much once you begin putting in real effort to think of ways to make it better and to perform better. Maybe your marriage will improve once you accept this is the only marriage you have and you need to do the work to make it healthy. Too many Christians take umbrage with God over their circumstances when God has already laid out the path to improve their situation — they merely need to recognize it and walk down it. You’ll never notice the ways your life can be better if you’re constantly looking for your next target to outsource the blame. Acceptance of the limitations of your design and the quality of God’s providence is the first step in making real progress towards improving your life .
Jesus goes on to suggest anxiety over worldly goods is unbecoming of a person who would follow Him. Heathens concern themselves with the goods of the world because the world is all they have. Christians steward the worldly gifts God has given them, but their deepest desire is always set on eternity. You’re actually designed to have your deepest desire set on eternity. Scripture says God has placed eternity in the hearts of human beings. This is why secular people often become dissatisfied with worldly pursuits and some of them even become depressed or nihilistic. We are built for a sense of meaning and purpose which transcends our mortal lives.
The heathens of Christ’s day were most likely idolaters as well. This meant they put their trust for providence into their own handmade idols of wood and metal. In some cases they sacrificed their own children to appease gods who were mere figments of their imaginations. To trust in an idol is really to put the responsibility back onto yourself. An idol can’t help you in times of trouble: it merely sits there with no life in it, no breath in it and no ability to speak. So why would anyone want to invest their faith in the inanimate? I think it’s because they’re able to control the inanimate. Idolatry at its core is merely a form of self-deification. Your idol is your god and your idol was created by you — therefore you have no one to answer to.
A Christian need not fall into this trap because Jesus Christ is the living God. The caveat is following Christ means following someone who isn’t you. But once you humble yourself and begin to seek after Christ — He will show Himself to you. Taking care to notice God’s providence and learning to trust in it will teach you both confidence in God and contempt for the machinations of this world. Allowing the Spirit of God to develop you in these two areas is vital to becoming a stable, mature person. Part of developing confidence in God is realizing He knows your needs better than you do. Even though He is in heaven and you are on earth, God is omnipresent and omniscient. He observes the needs of the least among people and their poverty does not escape His gaze.
Most people are able to exercise this kind of trust quite easily when it comes to their close family or best friends. They know these people well enough to know what they want or need and the other person knows what you need as well. Because you love each other you do what’s within your power to satisfy those wants and needs. God doesn’t need anything from you and God has all the power to meet your own needs. Just because He already knows what you need doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for it in prayer. The point of prayer in regards to providence is that God wants to hear it from you. Part of the reason for this is because He wants you to give Him the glory when the need is met rather than glorifying yourself or others.
You might wonder why God cares about us glorifying Him? I think the answer is because bad things happen to us when we glorify ourselves. We become arrogant and arrogance causes spiritual blindness. If you walk the earth spiritually blind, it’s only a matter of time before someone or something very bad takes possession of you. We’re seeing this ideological possession happen with alarming regularity in our own generation. Being uninformed is dangerous in this world, but it’s even more dangerous to be uninformed while believing you are informed. If a community fosters a bad idea and then it becomes authoritarian about the veracity of its bad idea (silencing and censoring dissenting views) — that’s how wars begin and that’s how you destroy entire societies.
So praying to God for His providence and then glorifying Him when He provides helps us stay humble and remember who we are in relation to Him. It also eases the burden of care on ourselves and those around us. This is one of the reasons why Christ says His yoke is easy and His burden is light. You are designed such that your spiritual needs are superordinate to your worldly needs. I’m not being naive here, I know these two domains are interconnected and a person who is starving in abject poverty won’t benefit much from robust spiritual care. The reason I say your spiritual needs are superordinate is because you could be rich in worldly goods yet remain miserable because of spiritual neglect. There are an abundance of people who, while not starving, are anything but wealthy and yet they live satisfying lives. That’s because these people derive a great sense of meaning and purpose which is consequent of a properly stewarded spirit.
When Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” He’s pointing out the superordinate nature of your spiritual condition. The life of your soul needs to be prioritized over your life on earth both because it is eternal and because it is the engine which drives your life on earth. A person in good spirits is actually able to accomplish far more in worldly gains than a person in poor spirits. This is why commanders of armies attach great strategic value to demoralizing their enemies. One of the problems with people who struggle in cyclical misery is that they are spending their efforts on trying to solve the wrong problem. Your earthly circumstance might be a real issue which needs resolved — but the key to resolving it is having a properly ordered spirit. Allow me to explain by way of analogy to success in the workplace.
Someone might say, “How does a properly ordered spirit (via self-sacrifice in service to God and His church) put food on my table? I would contend a properly ordered spirit is the most important cause for putting money in your bank and food on your table. This is what seek first the kingdom of God means. A person with a properly ordered spirit is attractive to other people which is a feature of networking. They desire to honor God through good work which is a feature of competence. And perhaps most importantly they love getting up in the morning because their sense of meaning and purpose feels satisfying — which is a feature of motivation. Motivation, competence, and networking are without doubt the three most important ingredients to success in the workplace.
I would also contend the most common barriers to a properly ordered spirit (or the correct way to live life) are shame and pride. Shame and pride are nothing more than deceptions and the sooner we recognize them as such the sooner we are set free to pursue God. Shame is a deception because the blood of Christ has justified you and Jesus loved us while we were yet sinners. Pride is a deception because humanity is broken and you have no cause to be proud of yourself. Relinquishing these deceptions will allow you to seek first the kingdom of God and seeking first the kingdom of God is the easiest, most certain, safest, and most compendious way of obtaining necessary goods in this life.
We should count ourselves blessed that God accepts the seeking of broken sinners. He does not require self-righteousness, rather He desires us to know Him. Seek to know God more than you seek the delights of this world and then you will end up with both. Seek the delights of this world more than you seek to know God and you will end up with neither — or worse — you will acquire the delights of this world and they will leave you feeling empty and hopeless with no perceivable way to escape.
The pathway to increasing in your knowledge of God runs through the scriptures. The more you read and understand the word of God the more you will know God. Part of this process of reading and understanding the scriptures means inculcating their teachings into your mode of being. That inculcation process will look like pursuing peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see God. So you pursue a path of peace and holiness.
When you wake up in the morning let your first thoughts meditate on God. Seek out wisdom while you are young so that this wisdom can pay dividends in your own life and in the lives of others. It’s possible to put God first in your whole life and in each day of your life, and doing so will not lead to God stripping you of everything else you love. It’s true you may be martyred or imprisoned for the faith, but God Himself is not going to leave you in a place of misery any more than He did Abraham when Abraham thought he had to sacrifice his son Isaac. The Lord provided for Abraham because of Abraham’s faith and the Lord will provide for you as well.
Paul writes to Timothy and he tells him, “godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” No person has ever sought the kingdom of God in vain who has sought it in truth and love. Solomon asked God for wisdom and he was given many other things in addition to wisdom. The best way to be comfortably provided for in this world is to be most intent on the world to come. I think the most difficult form of faith is faith for providence in the present moment. The number of Christians who trust in Jesus for their eternity yet believe themselves to be alone for the present moment is enormous. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We see from scripture how God did eventually bring His people to the Promised Land but He also upheld them for the decades they wandered in the wilderness. Trusting God in the midst of the wilderness is the highest form of worship.
This passage finishes with some curious words from Christ to His disciples: Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Being able to narrow your timeframe to the present moment is a crucial step toward a carefree Christian life. There are a few different lessons to be drawn from this. One is that if you’re constantly tied up in concerns of tomorrow you’re likely going to neglect the concerns of today. You might say, “Well what if I just like working ahead?” And there’s some merit to this argument, but you actually can’t work ahead on things you’re unaware of. Jesus said each day has enough trouble of its own, which indicates you’ll always have work to do even if you restrict your work to the present moment.
I like working ahead and I see the value in it — especially on projects which need a long period of time to complete. But I always guard myself against becoming so caught up in tomorrow that I fail to pay attention to today. If you simply follow the chain of tomorrows your entire life then eventually tomorrow isn’t going to come and you may look back and realized you missed quite a bit of today. Some forms of proactivity are wise but the best-tested way of preventing panic or a sense of being overwhelmed is to take a deep breath and take stock of the present moment. Therapists will often encourage people who are undergoing extreme psychological distress to narrow their timeframe. When you’re in great pain, it’s much easier to make it through the next 10 minutes than it is to imagine yourself making it through the next 6 months.
Another reason to pay careful attention to the present moment is so you’ll see all the little ways God’s grace is appearing in your life. Maybe it’s a beautiful day in terms of weather, maybe you’re sitting down to an exceptionally good cup of coffee. Maybe one of your good friends has a word of encouragement for you if you’d merely listen. All of these things are God’s providence in the present moment and if you feel like you don’t have the strength to carry the burdens of the day perhaps it’s because you’re missing out on these things. You will certainly miss them if you don’t search for them carefully in each moment. Jesus tells us to take heart because He has overcome the world. He wouldn’t expect us to face the trials of today if He didn’t plan on providing the strength and supply we need to overcome them.
Scripture says, “The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.” And so that’s a reality to remember every morning you wake up and face the challenges of the day. You’re not facing them alone. When we walk through life one day at a time we are reminded of our constant dependance on God. This reminder is not a coincidence and it factors greatly in Christ’s admonition against worrying about tomorrow.
Unfortunately this admonition is almost never spoken about in the public conversation concerning existential threats. We think about threats like climate change, nuclear war, and artificial intelligence without remembering the sovereignty of God. We also fail to remember that our future condition isn’t going to be the same as our condition today. While there may not be good answers for these threats today, the future birth of a thousand geniuses is likely going to lead to one.
We make all manner of needless and dangerous policy decisions in our efforts to solve problems which may not be today’s problems to solve. It’s not as if we’re never going to work on these problems — it’s just that we may do our best work on them at a future time. Such reasoning makes no sense to one who doesn’t have faith in God and who carries the weight of such burdens entirely on their own. Carrying this weight on your own isn’t a good idea because it causes anxiety and it will make you desperate enough to cause compromises in places where you should not compromise. Bad solutions to problems are often worse than temporarily accepting no solution at all.
Another reason why giving too much thought for tomorrow is a bad idea is because life is just hard. This is the reason Christ gives. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” is how the King James records His words. If your life feels too difficult you need to ask yourself whether you spend too much time thinking ahead and borrowing the burdens of tomorrow. Jesus Himself indicates this practice falls outside the scope of your intended design. You only have so many days of life on earth and apart from the wisdom of prudence, mulling over future trials isn’t going to make them any easier when they come. God exists outside of time so your future tragedies are happening in His present and have already happened in His past. He sees all things all at once. There’s a reason He did not give you this ability. There’s a reason your experiences have been laid out in portions.
So what’s the right answer in the final analysis? Trust God. You have to trust God because that’s your best possible option. Jesus doesn’t want you to be your own tormentor because He already knows how much pain and difficulty await you as you walk through life. Contrarily, because He loves you, He wants you to seek Him out for your supply of strength. He doesn’t want you to flee from the cross, He wants you to be brave enough to overcome it. He knows you are brave enough.
Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the Garden of Eden because the serpent told them it would make them like God. To be like God is eminently desirable which is no small reason why the deception worked. Oddly enough, when you stand up with courage and voluntarily pick up the sorrows and suffering of this life, you become like God. But this time it doesn’t lead to a fall, it leads to life and life more abundantly. That’s because this time it doesn’t run through your own strength and through the knowledge of good and evil, it runs through Jesus Christ who is the light of the world. That’s where the true power is. In Christ is where the all the power has always been. When you have that power living within you, you can break free of anxiety even in the face of trials — and you can overcome the world.
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