“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? 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? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
“And why do you worry about clothes?
See how the flowers 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—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. (Matthew 6:25-34)
It's been said that when you see the word
therefore, you should look at
what came before it, to see what it is there for. What thought does it
conclude? The first and last sentence of this passage begins with “Therefore,”
so we have our work cut out for us. The passage before this one is the one
about not being able to serve two masters. After telling us that if we have two
masters, we’ll hate one and love the other, Jesus said, “Therefore…” Is saving
our lives or having “a life” our purpose in life? Is that our master? What
about food and drink? How do we know whether food and drink have become a
master? And if neither of those dictates our life, there are the clothes that “make
the man.” How important are they? I have to laugh because the major
consideration about clothing for me is whether or not it is too stained (or has
too much ground in dirt) to wear.
Of course, these things are all
necessary. Jesus tells us that God knows these things are necessary. He created
us to need both Him and them. But, His command to us is to seek God’s kingdom
first – meaning that we should seek to be in such a place in our lives in which
God has effective control over our lives and let God take care of the food,
drink, and clothes.
Then, Jesus finishes with another petty
deity: tomorrow. It’s bad enough when we worry about life, food, drink, and
clothes for today, but when we add tomorrow into the mix, it becomes
unbearable. Therefore, we are told to seek first the kingdom of God and let tomorrow
take care of itself.
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