“It’s just like watching the meter go up and up,” a woman shared candidly in a news interview. In the UK and around Europe we’ve experienced many knock-on effects from the coronavirus pandemic: rising gas prices, higher bills, food and fuel shortages, lower immunity for winter colds and viruses, and so on. Our list of worries, it seems, isn’t going to decrease any time soon.
Every season has its own set of concerns. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Jesus addressed this subject in His most famous sermon. He said, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear” (Matthew 6:25). But with so many unknowns surrounding our daily needs and experiences, can we really be free from worry?
Jesus backed up His instruction with this comforting promise: “Your heavenly Father knows” (v. 32). Whatever needs we have, He knows. Where our circumstances have changed, He knows. Whatever problems we face, He knows. When we’re overwhelmed by the future, He knows. The most powerful antidote to worry is to take hold of the promise that our heavenly Father knows exactly what’s going on and what we need.
We begin to break free from worry when we place our hope in our Father who is with us through everything. In His timing, what we need “will be given” (v. 33).
By Chris Wale
REFLECT & PRAY
What are you worrying about at the moment? How does it comfort you to remember that your heavenly Father knows all that concerns you?
Loving God, thank You that my life and my worries are an open book to You. Help me to trust Your timing and Your care.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
Our passage today continues Christ’s Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) and is a subsection of the major theme considered in chapter 6—“the Christian walking and living in this world, in his relationship to the Father” (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount). But while the earlier subsection (vv. 19–24 ) deals with the danger of laying up and hoarding the treasures of this earth, this portion is concerned with our worrying or being anxious about material things. Some believe the first passage addresses the rich, while today’s addresses the poor or those who struggle to make ends meet. But it’s also possible for the rich to be obsessed with worry over material things. No matter how we look at these texts, both convey the danger of trying to find our security anywhere but in God and His great care for us (1 Peter 5:7).
Alyson Kieda
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