August 2, 2022 – Matthew 6: 25-34 – Dress Like Flowers and Eat Like Birds

Today we’ll continue with some of your favorites (or the passages you have questions about).  Email (andy@stm-umc.org) or message me with any passages you’d like added or that you have a question about!

Today we are looking at Matthew 6: 25-34

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed 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 oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the gentiles who seek all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

34 “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

There’s a great line from an old Rich Mullins song, “Hard” that references this passage.  There Rich sings: 

Well His eye’s on the sparrow
And the lilies of the field I’ve heard
And He will watch over you and He will watch over me
So we can dress like flowers and eat like birds

I’ve always liked that line, so we can dress like flowers and eat like birds.  In short, Jesus is telling us to not worry about the stuff of this life; the Father knows you need them.  See first God’s kingdom. And when you seek first God’s kingdom, He will make sure you have what you need. 

You have what you need. 

You have what you need. 

So, this raises the question. What do you need?  I believe that one of the major sources of our discontent in life is that we are upset and unsettled because we do not have what we want.’  We have mistaken our wants for our needs, and because of that, we are never satisfied. We want so very much, and our culture has a way of tricking us into wanting more and more, never satisfied.  Every commercial. Every advertisement.  Every post on Instagram.  

Buy this.  Get this.  Have this.  More and more and more.  And then when you have it, guess what?  It’s not the newest; it’s not the best.  You have to upgrade.  You have to get more and more and more.  

We are never happy. We are never satisfied. Because we have mistaken our wants for our needs.  He will watch over us. And He will give us what we need.  We will dress like flowers and eat like birds. 

And if we have Jesus, we see this.  In Him, we have what we need. 

We worry because we want what we do not need. Trust today.  He knows what you need.  He does. And He will supply your needs. Let go of those wants. Trust in Him. Follow Him. And you will find you have all that you need.  

If you’d like to get each day’s daily scripture reading sent to your phone along with this reading guide, text @39110 to 81010 to sign up!

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s