Priority concern!
Verse for Today: Thursday, May 31, 2012
Matthew 6:25b – Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
Jesus commands us not to worry about our future needs because He provides these basic needs to all His children at the right time. But He is concerned that we think seriously about our inner person. What we do for our bodies will last only this life time, but what we do for our souls has eternal implications. So we must think about how we would feed our souls so that our inner person will grow and become healthier. Our inner person needs strength to face the attacks of the enemy. The tests that we pass through demand spiritual vitality and vigor. In order to exercise our faith in the Lord, we must look after our spiritual health. Jesus has given His Word as our spiritual food. The enemy of our souls will try to hinder us from devouring or craving for spiritual food. So we must fight battles to see to it that we eat spiritual food in adequate quantity so that our inner person will grow and become stronger to exercise faith. Jesus also reminds us that it is more important for us to be properly clothed with the robe of His righteousness that He has given us to wear all the time. If we claim the righteousness of God by faith, and live with brokenness in our spirits, we would be properly clothed by the righteousness of God. When we thus appropriate the divine robe of righteousness by faith and brokenness, we will be protected against guilt. But sadly we all worry far more about physical food and outward clothes rather than the spiritual food and the robe of righteousness for which we must depend on the Lord. Thus when we take spiritual food and cover ourselves with the robe of righteousness of God, we would enjoy spiritual health and growth lest we will become spiritually sick and retarded. As we live by eating the right spiritual food and wearing the robe of God, He will also lead us to meet all mundane needs through His means.
Dear friend, are you mostly concerned about the basic needs and wants of your current and future life? Are you bothered much about food, clothing, transport, shelter, retirement and amassing wealth for your future generations? The pulls of our flesh, the lust of our eyes and the pride of life lead us to think more about the physical needs and wants. Our distorted priorities tend make us give much less importance to the needs of our soul and spirit. When we thus ignore food for our souls and robe for our spiritual person, we slowly become cold-hearted and miss the zeal of our first love to the Lord. If we do not feed our souls with heavenly manna, it is impossible for our souls to grow and become strong in our faith and trust in the Lord. When our intake of spiritual food increase, we become more concerned about serving the Lord and not the world. The more we drink from the fountain of the Word, the more will be our desire for His Word which will cool us off from the heat of our sojourn through the desert. We must also live a life of repentance so that we would always cover ourselves with the robe of righteousness of God. Thus when we mind the Lord’s business with the strength we draw from His presence and His Word, He sees to it that our mundane needs of food, clothing and shelter will be met according to His riches in glory. This is the formula for living without anxiety and burden in life. Our Lord calls us to live without anxiety about earthly needs by putting all our cares on Him and relax in His presence. He wants us to make Him our greatest priority in life. When He cares for us, we do not have any reason to carry burdens for the mundane. Today we have another opportunity to live by faith and please Him as we look after His service here on earth while we live to enjoy the goodness that He imparts.
Psalms 37:4 – Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Thought for Today
God wants His children to be more concerned about the needs of the inner person.
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