Let’s meditate on Jesus’s faith-building words concerning God’s faithful care (see Matthew 6:25-34). Counsel yourself with the Christ-centered truths below that are based on Jesus’s words in this passage. One useful hint: try reading them out loud so that they enter your eyes and ears at the same time.
— God commands me, “Do not be anxious.” I need to repent of worry (see vv. 25, 34).
— The essence of life is far more significant than material things (see v. 25).
— Birds don’t worry, fret, or hoard, and yet their needs are met (see v. 26).
— God feeds the birds, which are not even made in his image (see v. 26).
— Since I am made in God’s image, I am more valuable to him than all the birds in nature (see v. 26).
— Worry will not help me to live longer (v. 27).
— Flowers are clothed by God. God will clothe me too (see vv. 28-30).
— Worry grows unbelief — not faith (see v. 30).
— Worry is characteristic of unbelievers and worldly-minded people (see vv. 31-32).
— My heavenly Father knows my needs (see v. 32).
— All my material cares will be taken care of by God when I pursue Christ and his agenda above all (see v. 33).
— Anxiety borrows from tomorrow but never pays back the favor. It only doubles today’s trouble (see v. 34).
— Tomorrow has enough trouble of its own. I shouldn’t add to it by worrying (see v. 34).
There. That’s how to mine a portion of Scripture, pick out nuggets of ore, and forge them into daggers of truth that you can use to kill worry.
— Paul Tautges, Anxiety: Knowing God’s Peace
Matthew 6:25-34 (ESV)
25 Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34 Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. .
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