Matthew 6:26 “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

The brightly colored bird hopped around in the cage with several other similarly plumaged small birds. Every so often one of them would lift it's beak and chirp out part of an avian song. The peddler was not asking much, just a small sum for the small birds, yet no one around were the types of people to keep birds for pets. What is the worth of a bird? Well, there in that little village in northwestern Zambia the worth of a bird was not in it's song. After all, a song does not fill an empty belly. The worth of a bird there was a filled stomach. If that is the worth of a bird, yet God still knows each and every one of them on a first name basis (and there are a lot of birds in this world!) what then is our value?

How many types of insects are there? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Our six-legged friends outnumber us humans by one billion to one-half at least and yet Christ did not come as a bug, he came as a man – a normal, plain, everyday man.

What is the worth of a human? In some parts of the world the worth of a person is one bullet. In some parts of the world a girl is worth less than a boy and so her parents will get rid of her so they can have a boy. In some parts of the world, a human is worth less than a less than common animal, sometimes even the lives a person is counted less than the life of a wolf! Yet to God, each of us, each and every person is worth everything. He provides for us if we but ask. He teaches us if we but listen. He leads us if we but follow.

What is your worth? If everyone on earth was fully righteous except for you, Jesus would still come and die for you so that you could become righteous through Him.

Omnipotent Redeemer,
Our ransomed souls adore Thee;
Our Savior Thou, we find it now,
And give Thee all the glory.
We sing Thine arm unshortened,
Brought through our sore temptation;
With heart and voice in Thee rejoice,
The God of our salvation.

Matthew 6:25 "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious 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?”

I am a worrier. To some extent we all are. One of the happiest people I know is this wheel-chair bound, sickly woman who also has a speech impediment. She needs people to wheel her around, she needs someone to translate her mutterings so that others can understand what she is trying to say, she even needs people to take care of her at home! Despite all this, she still rejoices in the provision of the Lord in her life. She is continuously grateful for everything and continuously encouraging others.

One of the most unhappy people I know is a healthy, capable man who is married with two children. He worries about everything though. He worries about his income, he worries about the price of gas, he worries about the doctors bills, the temperature, the seasons, the rainfall, about his and his family's clothing lasting. He worries about the every noise his car makes, he worries about the rest of us doing a good job, he worries about everything, and he worries too much.

Now most of us probably fall somewhere between these two people. This woman trusts God to provide every need, every want, every singe thing in her life and she is totally content. The man doesn't trust God to provide and he is highly unhappy.

For me, I should think about the things I can control rather than worry about what I can't. In all cases, I should give it over to God. “Worry makes Miserable” and so instead I shall pray about it and allow Him to glorify Himself by taking care of it in such a manner that I never could. God is capable of worrying about far more than me, and He can do something about it. Why then should I worry or be in doubt?

God opens wide His hand,
In this our native land,
Year after year.
From His abundant store
He giveth evermore,
“Pressed down and running o’er,”
Our hearts to cheer.

Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

How direct and to the point our Savior was in this statement! I was talking to a lady with whom I used to work with while I worked in my college campus library. We were talking about my work and I was complaining about the usual griefs – long hours, too much paperwork, and the paycheck not being quite competitive for our industry. She surprised me by stating “It sounds like you have a spirit of greed.” It was a shocker to me, because I had not quite thought of it in that way. After all, I merely wanted to earn a more fair value for the responsibilities I had to carry. She continued “As long as God continues to provide for all your needs, why should you want any more?”

It caused me to think and I had to agree. God has provided most bountifully for me. Why I should worry about things beyond my control is not right, wanting more than I have been given for the sake of having more is greed!

I remembered that the original word in this passage was “mammon” instead of “money.” Mammon was a Greek word meaning avarice and greed. When this is taken into account, the passage reads “you cannot have both God and be greedy about anything”. Avarice extends beyond money. I wanted better hours and a better schedule than I had. I wanted this and I wanted that. It was about what I wanted and that of necessity excludes what God wants which excludes God.

I had to rethink myself and get down and pray about it. What greeds and desires do we face that place an obstacle in our walk with God? How can we avoid the traps of craving and avarice? We need to stay alert for such things!

With a strong and glad endeavor
Let us rally round the cross,
One in heart and zeal forever
Seek to save the world from loss.
In no scant and stinted measure
Be our wealth and service giv’n;
Let no love of ease or pleasure
Hedge to one the way to Heav’n.

In the joy of love’s communion,
Finding motive and reward;
Strong in purpose, strong in union,
As an army of the Lord,
Let us on to fight our battles
In the heav’nly Master’s Name,
Though the thunder rolls and rattles,
Though the sheeted lightnings flame.

Matthew 6:22-23 “ The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

I recently had the experience of having to change a light bulb. My closet light in my bedroom went out and thus I had very little light to see with as I tried to grab clothes off my shelf. The lamp in my room has a tiny 40 watt bulb in it and I have black-out curtains up so I do not get any outside light. I had to use a flashlight for several days to stack my clothes, pick out what I needed to wear, sort things, etc. After awhile I finally had enough and went to the general store and bought a new light bulb to change out with the old one. I now had light to see more clearly by!

This passage in Matthew is a puzzling passage. It follows right after storing up treasure and it precedes the passage about no one can serve two masters. In both of those passages, Jesus was very direct and clear about what He was trying to convey. This passage though was more obscured, to the point that it seems to me to be directed at His followers who would see through the eye metaphor.

The eye is what the body uses to see the surrounding world. The healthy eye sees Christ in all things and events and the blazing light that is Christ shows us everything clearly. The blind eye sees nothing and has no light, thus the blind eye can not see Christ. The blind eye is no follower of Christ. The sick eye waters and squints, it blurs and fuzzes and so the light that is Christ is barely able to penetrate it. This eye represents the person who has some experience with Christ or His teachings and so is able to see some of the light. The eye that once was good but now is blind or has had the vision impeded by cataracts or illness remembers the full light of Christ, but has turned away. The short sighted or farsighted eye focuses only on one aspect of Christ and cannot see the rest of Him and His works and teachings.

The eye is the window through which we interpret what we see. I need glasses to correct my vision to what is considered normal. When I put on my glasses, the world is sharper, the colors are brighter, and things are more distinct. I can see! But until I went to the eye-doctor, I did not know I needed glasses! I thought I was normal! Our sight fades and our relationship with Christ changes and we do not notice it. We need to have our vision corrected at times, just like I need to go back to the optometrist every so often and have my eyes checked and my glasses prescription updated so I can see clearly. Christ gives us the light to see, He reveals Himself, His world, and His blessings to us through our relationship to Him, but if we are not seeing clearly we cannot fully appreciate it. We need to renew our “spiritual prescription” periodically to get back to where we should be in our walk with Him.

During this period of time when the bulb was burnt out, I noticed that the little green light on the smoke-detector in the bedroom gave off enough light (combined with the light that came in under the door) that after a minute of being in my room I could see everything, albeit a wee bit murkily (and in shades of green). To me very well represents the world that the unbeliever lives in. To them that is normal and what the world should be like. They cannot understand those of us who have seen more, who have seen colors other than shades of muted and washed out green. But the only one who can change their vision is the same one who made their eyes. To bring vision to these people we need to pray for them and pray that Christ will give them sight. Then we need to let Christ work in us to minister to them appropriately. Finally we need to share our experiences and help them to learn to discern what they are seeing.

We need to ask ourselves three questions. What is our eye sight like when compared to Christ? Have we updated our prescription lately? What are we doing for those that cannot see or have their spiritual sight impaired?