25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. – Matthew 6:25-34
Jesus is great at saying a lot with few words, and here He seems to say more than is His norm about God’s provision for those who trust in Him. This is a topic that seems to matter a lot to Jesus. He seems to sympathize with how we worry about our needs, especially during times of hardship when our needs don’t seem to be met.
I am reminded of one of the reasons why I wanted to consider all the things Jesus said during this sermon—to which He referenced in the Parable of the Building on Rock and Sand.
The reason was to consider things that would cause us to be as buildings on sand when hard times come for us as Christians. In the ultimate fulfilment of this, we have the Great Tribulation in which “no man can buy or sell unless he that has the mark of the beast or the number of his name.”
If we live to see these times, or similar times as inflation continues to rise and unjust government regulations and oppressions take hold, we can know that Jesus cares.
He cares about our fears, but He instructs us not to fear. We are encouraged to trust in Him instead. He has a way of providing for our basic needs. However, it is also true, based on Christian history and on the scriptures, that many within the faith meet terribly painful ends. If this is the case for us, if we face nakedness and starvation, I hope that we will not think that God has abandoned us.
Job said, “naked I came into the world, and naked I go out. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” I trust that no matter what we might go through, if we turn to Jesus and trust in His mercy, He will strengthen us by His Holy Spirit so that we can endure for His sake.
What about now?
No matter what time we are in, we should “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.”
When we put Jesus first, we might not have the best of all things in this world. However, He will keep us for as long as is necessary for us to fulfil our purpose in Christ. We are His servants, created in Christ Jesus to do the work that He gives us to do and causes us to do by the gifts of the Spirit within us. All things we have come from God—and the gifts that further the Kingdom of God are far better than anything we can gain materially in this world.
However, during our service and once our service is done, we might find that hard things come at us. This does not mean that God is not for us. This means that we can expect a glorious resurrection.
In all things, whether we see our needs met or not, the will of God is being accomplished and we can trust in Him. If we put our hope in Him and not in this world—a world that promises to take care of us but only wants to use us and destroy us—then we will live.
His Kingdom is what we are truly after, and we cannot fully serve that Kingdom and serve this world also. This world will become His one day. “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord and our Christ and He shall reign forever and ever.” Days of immense darkness must come first.
The Lord will keep all who belong to Him. It is saddening to think about all the people who will fall away from the faith. It is saddening to think about the brethren who will suffer and it is frightening to think about our own temptations in the faith and the possibility of suffering.
However, if we fear God and not man and if we trust in Jesus and not in man or in ourselves, He will keep us. He will keep our hearts and minds so that we can endure, and He will keep our soul from death.
“Fear not what man can do to the body but fear He who has power to cast body and soul into the lake of fire.”
Fear God but trust in Him also. That seems like a strange contradiction, but fear causes us to properly respect the calling we have as Christians so that we can seek the Kingdom more earnestly. Trust causes us to believe in what Jesus is about and place Him as the real savoir of our soul and body instead of trusting in the foolishness and deceit of this world.
“Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.”
We do not know what tomorrow will bring. Today is the day of salvation, as the scriptures say. Today there is enough to focus on. There are enough temptations and needs to be met, and Jesus knows how to deal with it all. He knows what is happening in our individual lives and in the world at large. He has it all planned out and all things are “working together for the good of those who love God and for those who are called according to His purposes.”
This article is part of a series that considers the Parables of Jesus. Right now, we are looking at the statements Jesus made during His Sermon on the Mount, to which He referenced in His Parable of the Building on Rock and Sand. Visit the link for quick access to all articles written within this series.
PREVIOUS POST IN THIS SERIES: Where Your Treasure is, There Will Your Heart Be Also (Part 2)
Subscribe by entering your email address and clicking on the red button at the bottom of this page to get future posts by email or follow in WordPress.
Jesus Alone 