Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life . . . (Matthew 6:25)
Doesn’t it feel like worry often puts a stranglehold on us in both the little things and the big things in our lives? Scripture tells us time and time again not to worry . . . but we worry anyway! Today I want to encourage by showing you how to weaken worry by using just a small portion of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount.
When Jesus argued from the lesser to the greater — reasoning from clothes to life and from birds to people — He was making it clear that He has everything under His complete control.
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? (Matthew 6:25)
Because the body and life are far more complex and difficult to sustain than food and clothing — and God has complete control of our lives (Philippians 2:13) — we should not be worried about the lesser aspects of life, such as food and clothing. God has promised to provide all our needs (Philippians 4:19). Additionally, when Jesus returns and consummates the new heavens and earth, we have been promised new, resurrected bodies and we will live forever in glory. Keeping this in view will weaken worry, don’t you think?
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? (Matthew 6:26)
Here Jesus is telling us that God is ready, willing, and able to feed the birds, creatures far less valuable than people. If God is caring so completely for birds, will He not care for you, who are made in the image of God? Keeping this in view will weaken worry, don’t you think? We all know the ill effects of worry from personal experience. It damages our mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health. It derails our productivity, both on and off the job. It disrupts the way we ought to treat others. And worry disorients our trust in God.
Remember, the key to weakening worry is to remember that God has everything in complete control, both the big things and the small things. Let me close with an argument from the greater to the lesser:
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will He not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)
So do not worry, Christian; God has got this! He has got you. And you are assured of His love and care, both now and forevermore.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 