"You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both."Matthew 6:24 The Message
I listened to the man pour out how "awful" his life is because he feels he's reduced to living paycheck to paycheck. He never worried before about money in the bank because he always had it, but then he made some very bad life choices and has had to pay... literally. He's more concerned about how he's going to retire than how he lives his daily life right now. He's consumed with it to the point of obsessing, but come to find out, he has enough in his 401k to retire now and pay his bills - even though he's 16 years away from being eligible to retire. And he supposes he could sell some shares so he could pay cash for what he wants to buy now. However, he won't have what he had. He has spent his whole life working FOR retirement.
I wish we could see that life is so much more than working toward being old enough to retire. It's about living for the Lord in the here and now - in the present - and what we do to help those who God has placed around us. My colleague says he doesn't need to hear about God and yet, he keeps coming back... knowing I'm going to point him back toward the Lord.
If he could/would just read on from our text for today, starting at verse 25 NKJV, 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? 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? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 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? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
I pray that at some point, he will come to a place of understanding; that if God is his Source, he doesn't have to worry about the future. Since we spend our life working and we DO need a retirement plan, wouldn't it be wise to have the best one? Especially when the One who created the Plan has invested His life's blood into it and has the return results to prove it.
Prayer:
Father,
We pray that Your Holy Spirit would continue to prepare the hearts of men to receive the seeds of Truth that You allow us to sow. Let us sow only good seed. Send others to water, Father, as we stand believing for You to give the increase for the harvest. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen
I listened to the man pour out how "awful" his life is because he feels he's reduced to living paycheck to paycheck. He never worried before about money in the bank because he always had it, but then he made some very bad life choices and has had to pay... literally. He's more concerned about how he's going to retire than how he lives his daily life right now. He's consumed with it to the point of obsessing, but come to find out, he has enough in his 401k to retire now and pay his bills - even though he's 16 years away from being eligible to retire. And he supposes he could sell some shares so he could pay cash for what he wants to buy now. However, he won't have what he had. He has spent his whole life working FOR retirement.
I wish we could see that life is so much more than working toward being old enough to retire. It's about living for the Lord in the here and now - in the present - and what we do to help those who God has placed around us. My colleague says he doesn't need to hear about God and yet, he keeps coming back... knowing I'm going to point him back toward the Lord.
If he could/would just read on from our text for today, starting at verse 25 NKJV, 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? 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? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 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? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
I pray that at some point, he will come to a place of understanding; that if God is his Source, he doesn't have to worry about the future. Since we spend our life working and we DO need a retirement plan, wouldn't it be wise to have the best one? Especially when the One who created the Plan has invested His life's blood into it and has the return results to prove it.
Prayer:
Father,
We pray that Your Holy Spirit would continue to prepare the hearts of men to receive the seeds of Truth that You allow us to sow. Let us sow only good seed. Send others to water, Father, as we stand believing for You to give the increase for the harvest. In Jesus' Name we pray. Amen