Matthew 6: 19-34

Sometimes Jesus doesn’t seem very realistic. Just because He didn’t turn the stones into bread didn’t mean He couldn’t if He had wanted to. In Chapter 14 He will feed 5,000 people with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. When you have that going for you it’s pretty easy to tell other people not to worry. For people with real life worries about bills, jobs, families and their future, Jesus can sound a bit condescending.

But, I know Jesus well enough to know that He couldn’t be condescending if He wanted to. That’s just not in Him. So, how do I understand what He means in today’s reading?

I hear Him continuing the theme He began in chapter 5. My relationship with God is all about trust. Can I trust God with all of my life? It is one thing to serve a god that only gives me a list of moral and ethical standards to obey. It is an altogether different thing to trust God with my life, my wife, my children, my job, my retirement, my future. This difference causes many people to hear Jesus’ command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself,” as a thirty second sound bite but not a realistic way to live life; unless you live in a Monastery and don’t have jobs, bills and family to worry over.

But, Jesus wasn’t into sound bites. He was very serious in His call for me to enter into a trusting, loving relationship with God the Father. Because such a relationship is so out of the realm of anything I have experienced in my life, Jesus gives me concrete examples of what my life will look like when I live my life by trusting in God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I made these examples into a little check list to help me stay focused of what is really important to me:

Do I give more time and attention to my retirement accounts than I do to investing in the Kingdom of God?

What do I invite into my mind the most? Mystery novels and nonsense TV shows? Or, Scripture, literature and other materials that help me contemplate the richness and beauty of God’s Kingdom?

Am I anxious about meeting my needs? Or, do I trust God to meet my needs out of the abundance of His riches and glory in Christ Jesus?

Am I anxious about tomorrow? Or, do I remember that God’s mercies never end, they are new each morning?

What does today’s reading reveal to you about God?
What does it reveal to you about yourself?
Think about what God wants you to do or remember about this passage.

Does God want you to change anything in your life?