A culture that worries about many things

Luke 12:26-34

Yesterday, we looked at the command to each of us who follow Christ and it is not being anxious.  But in my 70 plus years on the planet, it seems apprehension is out of control in our daily lives, we are a culture that worries about many things; employment, family, government, the dollar, the stock market, our retirement, and the list just keeps going.  So these words are from Jesus as we look to the commandment telling us not to be anxious, do you recall yesterday Jesus told us we do not have the ability to add one hour to our lives.   So ponder verse 26 in that Jesus is clear, adding a single hour to your life is a simple thing for God because He has numbered the days and hours of our life. “If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?”  (Luke 12:26 ESV)

Jesus goes on to remind you and I about the lilies of the field and how God provides them with all they need and likewise the grass of the field and how God is taking care of it although it is here one day and the next is used in a oven, and Jesus asked the question, “how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith!  And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.”

The gospel according to Matthew in chapter 6:29-34 also covers the subject on being anxious but in verse 33, Jesus said; “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  Some preach, that Jesus was not preaching to the church, but I believe they are totally off base and that Scripture in no way supports their premise.  When one enters into a personal relationship by grace through faith and not a faith one musters-up, but a faith given by the Father in heaven, something amazing happens.  In Paul’s letters to the Galatians, chapter 2 and verse 20, it is clear Christ enters into you, but you also enter into Christ, His past becomes your past, and His future becomes your future.  “I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I how live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” 

If there is any doubt look at the gospel according to John in chapter 17 the High Priestly prayer of Jesus to the Father.  Listen in on Jesus’ conversation with His Father, it is all about you and me, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.  (John 17:20-23 ESV)

  

The key to seeking God’s kingdom is for the believer to strive to live by Jesus’ standards, and Doctor Luke gives these final words that Jesus spoke to His disciples about being anxious; “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.  (Luke 12:32-34 ESV)

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice