Matthew 6:24-34

“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. 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? Look 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? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

Comments

Exodus tells us that for the 40 years the Israelites wandered around the desert (waiting for the older generation to die), everyday God sent them manna, this flaky grain would fall out of the sky like the morning dew, they would go out early and gather enough for the day and get. They also quail sometimes, so it wasn’t an all-carb diet. But they were definitely on divine food stamps, they didn’t do anything to earn their food. Which is where we might end up if we take Jesus seriously here. But we don’t. We find ways to spiritualize it, reinterpret it to square with our decadent Western lifestyle. And then we go back to worrying. Lucky bird.

New Living Translation (NLT)

Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.