Much More to Life

“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?” Matt. 6:25

When Jesus spoke these words 2000 years ago, His original audience was just worried about having food to sustain their lives and clothes to put on their back.  Most people reading this article today don’t worry about going to bed hungry or having something to wear, but worry  about eating at nice restaurants or having a closet full of fine clothes.  To put it another way, we worry about our standard of living not about living.

America is past the point of becoming a materialistic society, it is a materialistic society.  Today most Americans are immersed in materialism from birth--so much so that it seems normal to us.  Materialism drives our economy.

When Jesus asks the rhetorical question “Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” the assumed answer is an obvious yes.  Life is much more than food and the body much more than clothes. Material things never satisfy the soul. You can have all the food you want and not be fulfilled. You can own many wardrobes full of clothes but your heart will not be content.

In Luke 10:38-42, Martha busied herself with much serving. Mary spent her time sitting at the Lord’s feet.  According to the Lord, Mary chose wisely. She chose what would not be taken away from her. Clothes fade and the pleasure of food is momentary, but a relationship with Jesus is truly satisfying and is eternal. 

Only in a real relationship with God will your heart truly be satisfied and content. Instead of pursuing material things, pursue spiritual things. Pursue Jesus.

Where’s Your Treasure?

¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also… ²⁴  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. Matt 6:19-21, 24

Do you long for Jesus’s return? If not the reason may be that you’re too busy building your own kingdom and not the Lord’s. Are you so busy acquiring treasure, or so preoccupied with your own hopes and dreams that you’re not thinking of the Lord’s return? Perhaps you prefer He wait a little while. It’s not that we don’t want the Lord to come back, we’d just prefer Him to delay His coming until we’re done acquiring and enjoying our treasure.  

The wealth and luxury of America can be a trap. We spend our lives chasing treasure. When we get it, the treasure starts to rust. If rust doesn’t get it, thieves will. Even the threat of our treasure being stolen causes us to live in a state of paranoia.  For some reason, though, we never catch on. Instead, we pray to God for the money to rust proof our treasure, or we pray that He will protect our treasure from thieves.  This is no way to live.

Jesus tells us to store up our treasure in Heaven. In doing so our hearts will be where they belong--with Him. How do you store up treasure in Heaven? You can either seek to serve the Kingdom of Heaven, or you can serve your own kingdom. In serving your own kingdom you acquire treasure for your pleasure on Earth. In serving Jesus, in dedicating yourself to the advancement of the Kingdom of Heaven, you are storing up treasure in Heaven. The treasure you store up in Heaven is rust-proof, can’t be stolen and is eternal. Whose kingdom are you serving?

Battling Temptation with Prayer

And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. Matt 6:13

Are you struggling with temptation?  You are not alone. Even though we may not talk about it, all Christians experience that struggle. There is no point at which the believer graduates from temptation.  Sometimes you get the picture that the struggle to succumb to temptation is something that only new Christians struggle with. That is not the case. The truth is that you have weaknesses just as I do.  There are certain areas of our lives where we all battle the flesh. To make matters worse, the Bible tells us that our “adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”(1 Peter 5:8) Yes it is true. Christians have an adversary, the Devil, and he wants to make us give in to temptation and disobey God. We all have different areas that we struggle with, certain propensities to sin, and our adversary knows just where they are and what buttons to push to try and make us give in.

When we pray “do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one”, we begin to acknowledge the battle against temptation. And as the old saying goes, acknowledging that there is an problem it the first step in curing it. In humility we are saying “Lord I know that have areas in my flesh that I struggle with and I am confessing I need Your mercy and grace.”  God can, and does, give you the grace you need to stand up to the temptation and resist the evil one.

When we use the Lord’s Prayer as our blueprint, we begin our day by addressing the fact that certain temptations will come our way and we will struggle with them. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge your struggles to God.  He knows them anyway. Ask Him for the grace to overcome them, and He will answer.  

A Prayer Request and Barometer of Your Faith

¹² And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors… ¹⁴ For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Matt 6:12, 14-15

In Jesus’s model prayer, The Lord’s Prayer, He instructs His disciples to pray to the Father for forgiveness of their debts (sins). We are not simply to pray “forgive us our sins” but rather “forgive us as we forgive others”. In other words “Father, just like I have forgiven others their sins, please forgive mine.” “Father please do for me what I have done for others.” Is this a prayer you can wholeheartedly pray? Have you forgiven others of their sins? Are you holding out forgiveness? If that sounds harsh, what Jesus says afterwards is even more sobering. “But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” This should cause us to do some serious soul searching.

If Jesus is saying that in order for God to forgive us we must forgive others, does that make forgiveness a work necessary for salvation? Salvation is by faith not works. Romans 4 says “⁵ But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.” So what does that say about Jesus’s statement that God will not forgive us if we do not forgive others? The answer is found in a parable Jesus shared on forgiveness. In Matthew 18 Jesus told a parable of a man who owed a king a great debt.  The man could not pay and begged the king to show him mercy.  The king did and forgave the man’s debt.   The same man went out and found someone who owed him money and demanded to be paid. The other man begged for mercy asking to be forgiven his debt, but the man would not.  When the king found out that the man he had forgiven would not forgive another man’s debt, he was furious. He rebuked him saying “should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’” (Matthew 18:33) The king then threw him in prison until he could pay all his debt.  The point of the parable is that once God has forgiven you, you are expected to forgive others. Why would a man who was forgiven a great debt refuse to forgive another man his debt? The answer is that the man was not truly repentant in his heart. He just wanted to get out of a jam. When he got out of the jam he went back to being his old miserable self. In the same way our hearts are exposed when we have a chance to forgive others. If we realize just how much God did for us by forgiving us, we should jump at the chance to forgive others. How could we who received so much mercy not do anything but lavish mercy on others? If you refuse to forgive others it may show that you never really repented and turned to Jesus in the first place.

Make this process part of your daily prayer life. Ask God to forgive your sins and search your own heart to see if you are holding out forgiveness on someone else.