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Quote from: Lori Bolinger on July 02, 2021, 11:35:31 am

The Cure for Anxiety...
Matthew 6:25 “This is why I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? 27 Can any of you add a single cubit to his height

• by worrying? 28 And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don’t labor or spin thread. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these! 30 If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t He do much more for you—you of little faith? 31 So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For the idolaters[p] eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God[q] and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. 34 Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

 
   When I first began looking at this teaching, I wondered what could be added to our understanding of such a simple truth, GOD is our PROVIDER.  It didn’t take long to figure out that there was more to glean if we just looked.  So let’s jump in.  Don’t worry...we already talked about this and how we can’t add anything to our lives by worrying.  (Luke 10:38-42; Luke 12:11; Philippians 4:6; I Peter 5:7)  Each of these passages deserves our full attention but there is more to get to so I will leave that to the reader. 
   We are not to worry about what to eat or drink.  Food and water are essential to life yet we are not to worry about them.  I remember the day our three oldest kids were young and we had left everything to follow God’s call on our life.  That particular day we had a can of green beans and a little bread and nothing more for three growing and hungry boys.  I know full well how hard it is to trust God with our daily bread, I have lived it many times over but I can also testify to how liberating it is to simply trust Him with our needs.  Didn’t He send manna and quail?  (Exodus 15:22-16:1-36)  But Deuteronomy 8:3 puts a unique spin on the entire account when it says, (HCSB) He humbled you by letting you go hungry; then He gave you manna to eat, which you and your fathers had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.  There was a greater purpose to God providing manna, quail, even water and that greater purpose was to teach the children of Israel that there is so much more to life than simple survival and that greater is God Himself and every word that He speaks.  Throughout scripture we see this teaching but it would seem we seldom spend time meditating on what it means. (Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4; I Corinthians 10:1-13) Consider I Corinthians 10:31 (HCSB) Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for God’s glory.  When we go back to the previous lessons, what we see is that it is about God NOT about us.  When we get this right, all things fall into place.  When we figure out that it is about God not about us and our fleshly needs we begin to seek God and when we seek Him and His Kingdom, ALL these things will be added.  (Matthew 6:33)
   Next we come to clothes, we are not to worry about what we will wear.  What a beautiful picture of the birds of the air and flowers of the field, some of each are so beautiful that it is hard to describe in words just how brilliant the colors, how clear the contrasts and compliments and yet we are more important than these.  Like the food and drink that is talking about more than just our fleshly needs, the clothes we wear is not just about the flesh.  We are to put on sackcloth and ashes.  In Biblical days, one used sackcloth and ashes to demonstrate their brokenness and repentance of the sins they had committed.  It was an outward show of an inward condition.  (Genesis 37:34)  When we wash our clothes in the blood of the Lamb, in other words come to Christ broken, in sackcloth and ashes for garments, He gives us a white robe, wedding clothes.  (Exodus 19:14; Matthew 22:12; Mark 9:3; I Peter 3:3; Revelation 3:4-18)  When we fail to grasp these concepts, it is because we lack faith. (Matthew 6:30)  When we go back to previously taught lessons, we also see that as God’s ambassadors, it is up to us to help Him by providing food, water, clothing to the least. (Matthew 25)
   So what then is the lesson...obviously the lesson is not to worry, but it is the why that is most intriguing to me.  Matthew 6:32 For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
First because God already knows what we need, even before we ask Him.  (Jeremiah 45:5; Matthew 6:8; Philippians 4:19; Romans 2:4; II Corinthians 9:  When we are able to shift our focus from the things of the flesh to the things of God we begin to discover freedom and life beyond our wildest dreams.  It’s about trust.
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
Secondly, He has made a promise to you and He will keep His promises.  That promise is that if you do shift your focus and seek Him and His Kingdom which is wherever the Spirit is, all these things, the food, drink, and clothes that the flesh needs will be given to you.  One of the ways God shows His Love to us is by being our Father, a Father that looks out for us and cares for us.  (Matthew 7:11; Psalms 84:11; Luke 11:13; Romans 8:32; James 1:17)
34 Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
And lastly, because today has enough struggle and difficulties, there is nothing beneficial from looking ahead to the struggles yet to come.  Focus in the moment of finding a way to glorify God in the current struggle and let that struggle yet to come be dealt with when God takes you to that moment.  (John 16:33; John 14:27; John 15:18; Acts 14:22; Romans 8:37) Trusting God to be the provider of all that is good,  (I Timothy 6:17-19) not just with the things of the flesh but the things of both the flesh and the spirit.

You said and wrongly so:"When we go back to previously taught lessons, we also see that as God’s ambassadors, it is up to us to help Him by providing food, water, clothing to the least. (Matthew 25) "

God does not need our Help...It is we who needs His help. As a servant, we follow his commands in obedience not help him out out of the goodness of our heart.

"Help" is used 126 time in 117 verses  in the KJV and not once does it say that We are to Help God!