God’s Responsibility Towards His Children (Matthew 6:25-34)
Matthew 6:25-34, “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” According to biologist, Cory Callaghan, at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, there are likely between 50 billion and 430 billion birds on Earth. That is a large gap in numbers but consider the estimation of even 50 billion birds. This is a lot of birds that depend upon food every day to survive. Also, consider the fact that birds consume far more food than they weigh. In general, birds eat approximately half to a quarter of their total body weight every single day. The smaller the bird, the more food it will eat because it doesn’t have a lot of extra fat to endure long periods without food. For example, a passerine bird can’t afford to spend more than 24 hours without any food. Birds eat so much because they have a very fast metabolism. These animals are constantly moving, flying, running, and using up body heat for day to day activities. They need to eat so much to power their bodies. Larger birds need large meals less often and smaller birds need small meals more often. Birds eat more in the winter than in the summer due to metabolic needs. They consume more than 100% of their body weight to keep their ultra-fast metabolism going since they burn a lot of calories. For instance, hummingbirds flap their wings 50 to 80 times a second! How much food do birds eat? As a rule of thumb, the smaller the bird, the more food it needs relative to its weight. Canada Geese eat lots of grass each day, partly because grass doesn’t have a lot of usable calories per pound. A 5-pound Canada Goose eats about a half-pound of grass per day (about 10 percent of its body weight). A chickadee may eat 35% of its weight in food each day. Eating something like 600 granola bars a day. A Cooper’s Hawk, a medium-sized bird that hunts other birds, eats around 12 percent of its weight per day. For a human weighing 150 pounds, that’s 18 pounds of food or about six extra-large pizzas. Hummingbirds are by far the hungriest of all birds. A hummingbird drinks about 100% of its body weight per day and eats as many as 2,000 tiny insects! That’s equivalent to you drinking 17 ½ gallons of milk and 300 hamburgers to survive each day. Consider the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, who has a net worth over 244 billion dollars, if he had the responsibility of feeding the birds, he would be bankrupt on the first day. Praise God! It is the LORD, who meets our needs and not man. The idea is ‘don’t worry.’ Don’t worry about what are we going to eat. Don’t worry about what are we going to drink. Don’t worry about what are we going to wear. When we ponder that of all God's creatures, from insects to the great animals of the forest, it is man alone who is constantly anxious about his survival on the planet. Three times Christ made a firm statement condemning anxiety. Making the statement once is sufficient to instruct us not to be anxious and worrying, but having to say it three times says the concern is very great. Because of the harmful effects of worry, Jesus tells us not to worry about those needs that God promises to supply. Worry has the capacity to do several distressing factors. Here are a few: Worry may damage your health, cause the object of your worry to consume your thoughts, disrupt your productivity, negatively affect the way you treat others, and reduce your ability to trust in God. How many ill effects of worry are you experiencing? Here is the difference between worry and genuine concern—worry immobilizes, but concern moves you to action. Take your worry and turn it into prayer. Do you want to worry less? Then pray more! Whenever you start to worry, stop and pray. PRAYER: Lord, I know that You don’t want me to live in the clutches of anxiety. You want me to live life guarded by Your peace. Please flood and guard my heart with it. Remind me, Father, that peace is not the absence of problems in my life but the calm assurance that what You’re doing is best. You have never failed me, and You will never fail me—my confidence is in You. I pray this in Jesus’ name! If this post in any way, has blessed you, please share this website and its articles with others: www.fellowshipbaptistcarrabelle.com
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AuthorDr. Blackman is passionate about helping others grow in the grace of the Lord. His devotions are centered on how to grow closer to the Lord through a personal relationship with Christ. Archives
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