Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Joshua 16-20
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 6:25-30
Jesus: Here is the bottom line: do not worry about your life. Don’t worry about what you will eat or what you will drink. Don’t worry about how you clothe your body. Living is about more than merely eating, and the body is about more than dressing up. Look at the birds in the sky. They do not store food for winter. They don’t plant gardens. They do not sow or reap—and yet, they are always fed because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are even more precious to Him than a beautiful bird. If He looks after them, of course He will look after you. Worrying does not do any good; who here can claim to add even an hour to his life by worrying?
Nor should you worry about clothes. Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow. They do not work or weave or sew, and yet their garments are stunning. Even King Solomon, dressed in his most regal garb, was not as lovely as these lilies. And think about grassy fields—the grasses are here now, but they will be dead by winter. And yet God adorns them so radiantly. How much more will He clothe you, you of little faith, you who have no trust?
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Here are some eight-year old statistics for you, the latest comprehensive statistics I could find quickly:
* In 2007, about 27 million adults, or 11.8 percent of adults ages 18 and older reported receiving treatment for anxiety and mood disorders.
* Medical spending to treat anxiety and mood disorders totaled $36.8 billion in 2007.
* Half of these expenditures ($18.4 billion) were in the form of prescription medications used to treat anxiety and mood disorders in adults.
* Annual expenditures on anxiety and mood disorders for those with an expense related to these disorders averaged $1,374 per adult.
Some reports I’ve seen since then show as many as 67% of Americans will seek treatment for mood disorders in their lifetime. 27% of Americans are in current active treatment for mood disorders of some kind. What does that tell you about how much we worry about tomorrow? About what we eat? Or what we wear? How much do we let things get to us today instead of trusting God to get us through life with Him? How much do we worry about things that just don’t really matter in the long run?
I mentioned my 95% Rule on the 21st of January if you want to go back and listen to the end of that podcast. In essence, it says 95% of everything that happens to us everyday just doesn’t matter. No one will remember tomorrow or the next day. Think about it. Can you recall the events of December 14th without looking back at a journal or diary? No one cares about what happened except as it pertained to your relationship with God and other people.
Can you understand what Jesus is trying to tell us? Don’t worry about the things the world tells you are so important because they’re not. Just like He tells us to lay up treasures that don’t rust and corrode, treasures that theives can’t break in and steal, He tells us to focus on the things that really matter, heavenly things, things of God. Throughout His sermon, Jesus bends our attention away from the material things of life and tells us to look inward. Look at our attitudes. How do we feel about others? How do we use the material things we have to help those in need? Do we hold those things as if they belong to us? Or do we realize they are God’s to use as He directs?
Will we hold the things of this life loosely so God can use us the way He wants? That the real message Jesus has for us. Don’t worry about the things you put on. Fashion changes to fast to keep up, anyway. And have you seen the stuff models wear? Who wants to go out in public with what comes down the fashion runway? Sometimes I think the designers have contests to see who can come up with the most comic, outrageous outfits. I’ve never seen any of those things on the streets of any city anywhere. Some of it looks like Sci-fi, fifty-first century trash.
And what should we eat? We get so caught up in the latest fad diets, butter is bad, not it’s good for you, no the report says maybe. Greens stop cancer, but wait, they might cause cancer, but only if there grown in Peoria under a blue moon. We get so tied up in what’s right and what’s wrong. The truth is, if we stick to a moderate diet of what God created, real vegetables, real meat, real fish and foul. We’d stay pretty healthy. It’s just hard to find stuff that is real now days. Everything is processed and fortified for our “health.”
Maybe God got it right in the first place. After all, He tells us not to worry about what to eat, doesn’t He? I think He probably knows what’s best if we would eat what He creates instead of what we recreate. Just a thought. What God really wants us to spend our time thinking about, meditating on is not what we will put in our mouths, or put on our bodies, but how will we fill that empty place in our soul? How will we satisfy that God sized empty spot in your soul? Will we try to satisfy it with the things of this world or with Him? That’s the question. Only you know your answer. What will it be?
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