Overcoming Anxiety in Finances – #3


By Ryan Shaw

Jesus concludes the two illustrations by describing His audience as, “O you of little faith.” A portion of our failure is not observing the natural order and how He so graciously looks after it. If these things are true for birds and lilies, how much more should we trust Him?

Overall, there is tendency toward a general lack of faith in God that disrupts our lives and causes worry & anxiety room to develop. We have so little insight and understanding of God’s heart and the intense care He has for human beings choosing to love Him.

Jesus is inspiring believers to pursue a developed faith sufficient to trust Him for daily needs of food, drink and clothing and to live free from worry in doing so. In verse 32 He points out three main principles that if grasped will lead to greater faith.

The first principle to increase our faith is recognizing that being worried and anxious about food, drink and clothes is to be just like the Gentiles. The Gentiles had no knowledge of God. Through worry and anxiety we are operating like those possessing no knowledge or relationship with God.

The second principle is our heavenly Father already knows we have need of such things. To enlarge our faith it is essential we learn to have implicit trust and dependence on God as Heavenly Father.

This includes a consistent awareness that we are never outside of God’s careful gaze. God knows everything we need and every situation we go through. As a result I can trust He will lead and guide to provide for all I need because He is a kind and generous Father.

The third means of developing faith is to consistently “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.” This has nothing to do with coming to God for salvation as the Sermon on the Mount is written to born-again believers.

It is a call to grow in faith by allowing our priorities to be aligned with what God is primarily focused on.

Being consumed with loving God with all our heart, the Kingdom of God being established on earth and Jesus’ righteousness being known more and more on the earth, makes it difficult to be sidetracked by petty worry and anxiety over food, drink and clothes.

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