Thursday, May 10,
2012, 5:32 a.m. – The Lord woke me this morning with the song “Keep On” playing in my mind. Speak,
Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV 1984):
“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 important than food, and the body more
important than clothes? 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? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to
his life?
“And why do you worry
about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.
Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one
of these. 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, O
you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What
shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these
things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as
well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about
itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
My Understanding: Worry
can be defined as anxiety; concern; apprehension; fear; nervousness; and/or
inner turmoil, distress, and troubling or torment of the mind and emotion over
things that may or may not happen. Usually the things worried about are matters
over which we have little to no control.
Food, Clothing and
Shelter
I don’t think that in the USA too many people truly go
hungry or without clothing, because of the government-sponsored (by tax payer
money) welfare system that is in place, which offers help with such things as
housing, clothing and food, and because of all the charitable organizations we
have, including churches, which also help families in need. Yet, there are many
families who do not qualify for welfare (or charity), or who opt to not use it
who may worry about where their next meal will come from or how they will
clothe their children.
Unemployment rate is high, which means many people are out
of work, and thus are not able to provide for their families as they once could.
Businesses are closing down for lack of customers and/or patrons. Prices are
high for everything in the USA, so even middle income families must live pay
check to pay check and may have concern about how they are going to pay their
monthly bills. Though few of us (less than 1% of US pop.) truly know what it is
to go hungry, to not have a roof over our heads, and/or to not have clothing or
shoes, that does not mean that people in the USA worry less or feel they have
less to worry about.
Other Worries
I believe worry is part of human nature and something we all
must guard against. Worry can be learned behavior. If we had parents who
worried about everything, or we were/are around people who fret and worry all
the time, then we may be worriers because of the influences of others. If we
grew up under very difficult circumstances such as extreme poverty, a time of
financial depression, and/or severe abuse or misfortune of any kind, we may
have a tendency more toward worry than other people more fortunate than us.
We may live comfortably financially and may not identify
with such things as worrying about how we will eat, where we will sleep or what
we will wear, but that does not mean we will be free from worry. We may
encounter high medical bills due to illness or injury and wonder how in the
world we will pay them. We may require the use of a lawyer and have concern how
we will pay his/her fees. As well, we may have major repairs or replacement of
parts in our homes or vehicles and not have the where-with-all to pay for the
needed repairs. We may have school-age children who need school supplies and we
may not have the funds to provide what they need. We may worry about our
health, education level, intelligence, level of talent or skill or training,
rejection and persecution, the opinions and/or acceptance of others, whether we
will have a job in a year or two, and/or whether our retirement money will
still be there when we get ready to retire, etc. We worry about so many, many
things.
Going along with the subject of fearing the opinions of
others and/or their rejection of us, and perhaps even going to the point of
becoming a people pleaser in order to avoid such discomfort, many professing
followers of Christ shrink back from sharing their faith, from giving their
testimony, from even letting people know they are followers of Christ, and/or
from sharing the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ with those who need a
Savior. They do this because they worry what others will think about them, they
fear rejection and/or they fear that they will say it wrong or they will fumble
over their words, and so they say nothing rather than stepping out in faith,
trusting the Lord with their reputations and the words to speak.
Trust, Rest and Abide
No matter the degree to which we have a tendency to fret,
though, all worry is sinful and demonstrates a lack of trust and faith in
Almighty God to provide all that we need. Yet God is the one who made us and
who breathed life into us. If he, as God, created us, can’t he also provide for
us all we need? Most certainly he can!
Yet, I believe this problem of worry goes beyond it being just
habitual, learned behavior, and/or lack of trust in God’s resources. I believe it
goes to whether or not we truly understand who God is. In other words, if our
image of God is skewed, then our responses to our circumstances could also be
skewed (distorted).
For instance, I was abused as a child and I faced other
abuse as an adult, too. I believed in God/Jesus as my Savior from early on. I
knew God loved me, that he cared about what was going on in my life, and that
he was there for me to offer me love, hope, encouragement, and comfort for my
troubles. Although I understood intellectually about the sovereignty (absolute and
supreme power, rule, authority and control over all things) of God, that
knowledge had not worked its way practically to my heart.
In my heart I saw God as the best friend ever who really
cared about all my hurts, but I also saw him (subconsciously) as limited to do
anything about my circumstances. I mean, if I truly understood and accepted the
sovereignty of God over my life, then I would have to accept that God not only
had the power to physically deliver me from life’s situations, and chose not
to, but more than that, he even placed me in some of those situations (see
Psalm 139). And, I think that was more than my conscious mind was ready to
handle. So, I did worry a lot in my prior years of life, and I still have to
fight that off, at times.
If we are going to trust Christ in all things and truly rest
in him, we have to know who he is. We have to know, not just intellectually,
but experientially that he truly is absolutely able to handle anything that
comes our way. As well, we have to accept that God may place us in families
where we will be abused because he has a plan for our lives that may require
that we go through tremendous difficulties. He does not cause people to sin
against us nor is it his will that people sin, but he allows evil to prevail
because he uses it to humble us, to purify our hearts, to teach us to place our
trust completely in him and not in man, and to get us to call upon him in our
troubles so that we might rest in him and in his power and strength instead of
relying upon our own resources. He has a plan and a purpose for each one of our
lives, and he will allow us to go through difficult circumstances in order to
get us to place our trust in him and so he can mold us and make us into the people
of God he wants us to be, and so he can use us in the manner in which he had
designed for us from the beginning of time.
So, if we are going to trust, and not worry, we must trust
God with every aspect of our lives and believe that he always has our best in
mind, even when it doesn’t look that way. And, we must believe that everything
that comes into our lives has a purpose, and that God is not unaware of our
circumstances, but he is absolutely in control of all that goes on in our
lives. To accept less is to not truly understand who God is, and will only lead
us down a path of worry, defeat, self-pity, depression, anxiety, taking matters
into our own hands and trying to control our own lives and destiny, and/or acting
out our fears through sinful behavior, etc.
Seek Righteousness
The remedy to abrogate fear from our lives is not only to
stop fearing and to trust God, but to seek first God’s kingdom and his
righteousness. We learned in an earlier lesson that God’s kingdom (the kingdom
of God or the kingdom of heaven) began with Christ Jesus’ earthly ministry and
encompasses all that he was/is, all that he did/does, his death, resurrection,
ascension to heaven, the sending of the Holy Spirit to indwell the life of the
believer, and the church as the body of Christ. It will culminate in Christ’s
return and his millennial kingdom reign on the earth (future).
So, to seek first his kingdom means that we pursue as our
first priority in life all that Jesus did and stood for and was/is (his godly
character) and we make it our own by applying it in all practicality to our
daily lives. In other words, we follow Christ Jesus’ example for daily living,
we follow his teachings and commands, we desire to please him in all we do, we
obey him as a regular practice, and we daily turn from our sins and we turn to
follow wherever Jesus leads us. His kingdom is advanced through the spreading
of the gospel of Jesus Christ and acts of love, mercy and compassion that also
share the hope we have in Christ. So, to seek first Christ’s kingdom means that
what is of upmost importance to God/Jesus is also first priority in our lives.
Jesus is not just an afterthought or someone we “worship” for a few hours a
week or a few minutes a day, but he is to be first and foremost in all we do
and say and think. And, all that we do, think and say should be filtered
through his word.
Jesus’ righteousness is his holiness, purity, morality,
uprightness, honesty, decency, honor, etc. We will never be perfect in this
life, but we should also not use that as an excuse for willful or continued sinful
behavior. We are to pursue his holiness in our lives. We do this by forsaking
our sins and by turning to follow Christ in all holiness and purity. This is
not a one-time decision we make at an altar. Jesus said that if we are to come
after him, we must daily take up our cross and follow him, and we must die to
our old lives if we want to find our lives for eternity. Daily we ask the Lord
to reveal to us what is in our hearts and lives that is sinful and is
displeasing to him, and we turn from those things and we put on the opposite:
put off lying and tell the truth, put off stealing, get a job, and give, etc.
(see Ephesians 4-5). We must daily choose to follow the Spirit and not the
flesh. If our minds are set on things above and not on things on the earth, we
are much less inclined toward worrying about anything in these earthly and
temporal lives of ours.
Keep On! / An
Original Work / December 15, 2011
Praise the Lord!
Praise Him now!
Before Him humbly bow.
Repent of your sins
now.
Turn to Him; obey now.
Walk in fellowship
with Him daily,
And abide in His
truth.
He will forgive you,
And He’ll cleanse you,
And He’ll give you new
life.
Trust in Him. He is
truth.
He will not forsake
you.
Rest in Him. Let Him
lead.
He will meet all your
needs.
Obey His ev’ry word to
you,
And listen to all He
says.
He will be faithful
In all His promises,
So rest in Him.
Do not bow – gods of
men.
Let Christ rule in
your hearts.
Do not stop – share
your faith.
Keep on: speak Jesus’
name.
Share His truth with
all He leads you to
Be a witness for Him.
Never yield to sin
Against your God.
Obey Him in ev’ry way.
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