SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/4/2021 9:09 AM
My Worship Time
Focus:
“Worry is Unnecessary Because of Our
Father”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt.
6:26-30
Message of the verses: “26 “Look at the
birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet
your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 "And
who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28 “And why
are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they
do not toil nor do they spin, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his
glory clothed himself like one of these. 30 "But if God so clothes the
grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the
furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!”
The
title of this SD is only the introduction to what we will be looking at as
there are different sub-sections under this main section. I want to quote from MacArthur’s commentary
what he wrote in his introduction to this section and then begin with the first
sub-section “Worry about Food,” which may take more than one day to get through
it.
“The
basic thrust of these verses is that a believer has absolutely no reason to
worry, because God is his ‘heavenly Father.’
‘Have you forgotten who your Father is?’
He asks. To illustrate His point
Jesus shows how unnecessary and foolish it is to worry about food, about life
expectancy, or about clothing.”
Worry
About Food: (Matthew 6:26) “26 "Look
at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more
than they?”
It
is very possible that Jesus had pointed to the many birds that were in northern
Galilee as He was talking about this section, as many birds migrated through
this section of Israel each year, so perhaps it was the time that this was
going on when Jesus uses this illustration.
This phrase “look at the birds of the air” was an object lesson that
Jesus was using to make His point concerning our Father’s care for us. MacArthur adds “He called attention to the
fact that birds do not have intricate (complicated) and involved processes for
acquiring food. ‘They do not sow,
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns.’”
God
has given the birds great instinct to be able to find food as these birds have
their life from God, and so God tells them (in effect) “you are now on your
own, do what I “programmed” you to find food and do other things. So this is how our Heavenly Father feeds the
birds. Job 38:41 writes “"Who
prepares for the raven its nourishment When its young cry to God And wander
about without food?” Now before we
answer this question let us look at Psalm 147:9 “He gives to the beast its
food, And to the young ravens which cry.” And so the answer is found here.
I
believe that what we are looking at here is from the lesser to the
greater. Since God cares for what could
be called relatively insignificant creatures that would it not be logical that
He is going to care for us His children who were bought with the price of His
Son’s blood on Calvary. Jesus then asks “Are
you not worth much more than they?”
We
will end this SD with a quote from Arthur Pink who comments “Here we may see
how the irrational creatures, made subject to vanity by the sin of man, come
nearer to their first estate and better observe the order of nature in their
creation than man does. For they seek only
for that which God has provided for them, and when they receive it they are
content. This solemnly demonstrates that
man is more…vile and more base than even the brute beats.” This quotation comes from “An Exposition of
the Sermon on the Mount.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I suppose that this section has kind of
stepped on my toes as from time to time I forget just how much God truly loves
me, and how much He has promised to care for me, and therefore at times I want
to step out and do things on my own and not take advantage of what God will do
for me. I suppose that I need to be more
like Mary, the Lord’s earthly mother who when she told Jesus that they were out
of wine at a wedding that she just left the result to Him even though He asked
her “what does this have to do with me?”
She simply told the servants to do what He would tell them to do as she
truly knew who her Son was, and trusted Him.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To know who Jesus is and to trust Him.
1/4/2021 9:38 AM
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