“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ... Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life” (Matt 6:25-27).
Worry is a choice. We don’t think of it that way, of course. To us, worry is just what happens when you’ve got a lot on your mind, but the scriptures insist that worry is a choice that we’re making.
When Jesus talks about food and clothes, he’s not talking about modern, prosperous Americans who wonder if they can afford to eat out or want a new pair of designer jeans. He’s talking to people who wonder where their next meal will come from and only have one threadbare garment. He says to them, trust God to meet your material needs. If he expects that of them, he certainly does of us.
When Isaiah describes a servant who is pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities (53:5), we’re within our rights to see Jesus. When David describes someone whose hands and feet are pierced, whose clothes are divided by casting lots (Ps 22:16-18), we’d have to be blind not to see Jesus. But when Hosea says, “Out Egypt I called my son” (11:1), aren’t we taking it completely out of context to say it’s about Jesus like Matthew does (2:14)? The problem is we have a fairly limited sense of the word “prophecy” compared to the apostles.
Theologians and Bible teachers speak of types, patterns, and figures in the OT, but literature gives us a simpler concept: foreshadowing — a literary device where an author gives the reader a hint of what is to come. In modern media, we have developed another useful concept: the Easter egg.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:19-21).
It’s OK to want to be rich, but there’s more than one kind of riches.
According to Jesus, there is wealth that will pass away and wealth that will last. He advises us to store up wealth that will last. But what kind of wealth lasts?
In the past, wealth might just be stored food. If you could store up enough grain to last a lifetime, you were set — unless something got into your grain and ruined it. Or you could have gold or silver — as long as no one broke in and stole it. Today people are less likely to keep massive granaries, preferring to invest so that your money makes more money. Until the stock market crashes or that company you sunk your savings into turns out to be nothing but a shell game. So some people just hide their cash in their backyard, which seems like a safe bet until runaway inflation hits and a loaf of bread costs a million dollars (or Deutsch marks).
Stored goods can be ruined, gold can be stolen, markets can crash, and money can be devalued. What kind of treasure lasts forever?
Our culture says I can be anything I want to be, but God says I was made with a specific purpose in mind. If I am not being what I was made to be, what am I? You can use a car as a planter, but cars were not made to be planters. A car being used like that is not living up to its full potential, and no one would do that to a car unless it was broken, unless it could no longer be what it was made to be.
Even the shiniest toaster makes a pretty bad mirror. You could use it as a door stop, but that’s not what it’s for. Maybe you could use it to store bread, but doesn’t it just cry out for you to press down that lever and fill the house with the glorious smell of toast?
Our society is obsessed with becoming “my authentic self”, and everyone gets to determine for himself what that is. And the first thing they do is throw out their maker’s actual intentions.
