Luke 12:19-26

Luke 12:19-26 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Life is being rich toward God. If we are rich toward God, we will receive what we need in life, perhaps not be as much as we desire to eat, drink and be merry, but enough. This promise is to those who follow Christ. Does this mean you will never be hungry, never thirsty? No! This means God takes care of you, takes care of your eternal soul. He will see you through to the end. We know Paul sometimes struggled for sufficient food and drink. To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. (1 Corinthians 4:11). Today in Haiti, some Christians are hungry, thirsty, and homeless, but Jesus is still taking care of them. The Bible says if we are treated brutally as the slave with a froward master, God is still taking care of us.

This world is not our home. Jesus says, do not fear those who can kill you, but fear God who can remove his eternal presence from you. If this world is not our home, the things of this world are not our things. Therefore we should not strive for this world or worry about it. Jesus illustrates this attitude through the raven, a carrion eater. As an unclean bird, he eats the decaying flesh of carcasses, but Jesus says that even an unclean bird receives care in God's economy. How much more are you worth that the carrion eater, the eater of dead flesh? We are God's children, partakers of the bread of eternal life. Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." (John 6:35) Will our physical bodies experience hunger or thirst sometimes in this life? Yes, but our eternal souls will never hunger or thirst. In Christ, we find our sufficiency: an eternal home, satisfying food, and water to slake our thirst as we trust him and partake of the living water and the bread of life.

As children of the MOST HIGH we are more valuable than the birds. He is preparing us for his presence, not this earth's atmosphere. God provides his strength for eternity, not for a limited, finite existence. Yes, God blesses us in this life, but his primary focus for his beloved children is to perfect that work which He has begun in us. His purpose is to allow HIS LIGHT to shine through us. Sometimes, HIS LIGHT shines the brightest in the darkest places of our lives. We display saving faith best when we struggle, when life in the natural seems out of control. If God answered every concern, rewarded every endeavor, and heeded every request, we would not need enduring faith. If God always came through as WE DESIRE, who needs faith? He just answers.

In a spiritual life of faith, we believe in God, relying and depending upon him even when our lives are full of problems. As with Paul, when we thirst or hunger, when we lack possessions or even a home, we place everything in God's hands and say by faith, "I will not worry or complain, for I know I am more precious than the birds. I know I am your child, God." IMPOSSIBLE! Yes, impossible, unless you hear the still, small voice of God say to you, "Son, daughter, you are mine. I am with you, and you are more precious to me than life itself, for I gave Jesus, my Son, to you." Rejoice in his abundant life today.