Matthew – God’s Purpose
We were created with all kinds of inner mechanisms to see, touch, feel, taste, and hear. We were given intricate minds to understand and interpret our senses. We were created with hearts and souls at the center of our being to be filled with all the Creator has for us. How are we using what God gave us to love Him back and to love others?Jesus preaches a new way of thinking about our Heavenly Father who has not changed His Law, His Love or His Purposes for us.
Let’s use all our sense and senses to understand what Jesus is teaching and helping the crowd then and now to understand about God.
Matthew 6, NKJV
Continue the “Sermon on the Mountainside”
The Lamp of the Body22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT: How do we look? What or to whom are we looking to for wisdom, insight and the light of understanding? From what point of reference do we look and really see? Does His Light shine from hearts full of love for Him and others us as a holy beacon? Or is the darkness inside causing our lights to dim greatly?
You Cannot Serve God and Riches24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT: I cannot have lust for anything not of God. My focus is either on that thing or it is on God. We cannot hold on to grudges, savings, tithes, offerings, offenses, unforgiving hearts, or anything else that we tightly cling to with our being. We must let go of all in order to gain all of God. Who do we serve? Look at what we are holding onto so tightly. There is our answer.
Do Not Worry
25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For 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 shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
THEREFORE…is there for a reason. In the middle of Jesus’ teaching with direct life application he includes, “Don’t worry…about anything.” See and seek God FIRST each morning! All those things we worry about day to day and see as obstacles to living life seem to dissipates into the thin air, popping like bubbles in the wind. We realize immediately that God is greater than all our problems. We have a new perspective and a new way of thinking that goes beyond “positive thinking” as some call it to living a rich, relentless faith in the One who created all and is in all. When our hearts, minds and souls see only God first, the rest of life falls into place. In His time, in His Way, for His glory, In Jesus Name.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Our day is full of possibilities so we seek the fullness of You in us first. Fill us with all you know we will need for this day. All our trust, hope and faith is in You. You have all our love. Continue to lead and guide every thought and action. We look to You first.
In Jesus Name, Amen
Daily Manna with Your Mug 