Multitudes came to listen to Jesus teach. People doing life that was messy. Life that wasn’t working as they thought it should, life that left them empty. As they sat on that grassy hillside, with the sunlight warming them from above, Jesus the Son of God, warmed their hearts with His words.
He spoke to them all. Teaching them how to make our day to day existence work. They would need to take His teachings and incorporate them into their daily lives. Jesus began with heart attitudes that could set the tone for the rest of lifetime. He moved on with the reality of reaching out to others and making a difference for God. Afterwards He gave direction on how to deal with anger, as well as situations such as murder, divorce and unforgiveness. Conditions that can weigh us down and keep us from traveling the path to the Kingdom.
Loving, giving, praying and fasting are all subjects that Jesus felt compelled to include in this world-encompassing message. Laying up treasures and judging others continue these time-tested teachings. In particular, the chapters found in Matthew 5 – 7 are a treasure trove of direction for “doing life.”
Prioritizing Life
As I have recently read the passages on treasure, prayer and worry I began to get a picture of the misalignment of our thoughts versus God’s thoughts. We must align our hearts and minds to the way God thinks. Adjustment begins when we prioritize God as the main thing in our days.
The following verses zero in on how we can begin to calibrate our life accurately. “..if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”(6:22) No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (6:23)
There isn’t to be two main priorities in life. God is to be our focus, our main thing. It is He we are to love and hold to. When we realize that God is the true treasure of this convoluted life on earth, then we can let go of the worries about the chaos of life.
We see Jesus stating this in Matthew 6:25, ” Therefore Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment.”
The word therefore begins verse twenty-five. It has been said, that when you see the word therefore, you stop and find out what it is there for by looking at what comes before. To clarify, what comes before is Jesus expressly stating that we cannot serve two masters. Consequently, when Jesus is first in out lives we can trust Him with the worries that life seems to bring.
Recognizing Life
When we have made our choice and established God as our top priority, we can settle our life within His hands with confidence and live out the above mentioned verse. Life is not just all the situations and problems we face, we have an eternity that needs to be factored in. We must recognize that life here on earth is to be anchored firmly in the reality of our relationship with our Eternal Father.
Heaven’s perspective will help us to view the empty bank accounts and unpleasant situations as an opportunity for God to show Himself strong on our behalf. These paralyzing situations can become a juncture where we can anchor our faith anew and draw up closer to Him.
We can’t change our circumstance by worrying about them, stressing over them, or becoming angry about them. It is only in the seeking of a God-relationship, that we will find the broken aspects of our lives being used for our good and His glory. We must singularly seek Him, and rest in the knowledge that God has it all in control.
We are more important than the birds of the air, and they are not beyond His notice. The flowers that bloom and fade in such a short amount of time come under His watchful care. How much more shall His care be extended to those who choose to seek Him?
Accepting Life
Jesus ended these chapters by bringing us back to the storms of life. “For in this life we will have tribulation.” It is only as we take these truths and imbibe them deep within the sinews of our life, that we will be able to withstand the descending rains, the raging floods and the beating winds that are sure to come. God is the solid rock that we seek and find during our storms. He is the only one that will keep us from falling.
If we fail to singularly focus on seeking God through the torrential rains, raging winds and deepening floods, we will find ourselves flattened again and again.
Above all, as we walk through life’s troubling seasons, let us purpose to seek Him with a single-minded intent. Because we recognize that God knows how to “do life” and will lead us safely home.
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