Good Morning and May your day be filled with happiness, and peace of mind. Today we will talk about another verse of the Bible that applies to us all. I hope you kids can read this as well. It's about our own ideas of what is important and not important in our lives. Jesus had overheard of of his apostles, speaking about how someone had taken his cloak, and now he was cold and without. Jesus said to him,
"Why do you concern yourself with things of this life?What you shall eat or what you shall clothe yourself with. For is life not more than food or drink, nor yet the body more than clothes? Consider the birds of the air. They neither reap nor sow, nor gather into barns, and yet their heavenly father feeds them. And are you not more beloved of the Father than they? How about the lillies of the field? They neither spin nor toil, and yet their heavenly Father adorns them with rainment far more gracious and elegant than King Soloman himself. And are you not worth more to him than these? So if your heavenly Father loves them, which are hear today and then gathered and thrown into the fire, will he not more so provide for you? Oh ye of little faith."
I thought alot about this verse over the last few years, and I began to see more clearly what he meant. We think of ourselves as pretty crafty people. We invent, we create, we imagine. And yet when a crisis happens, many of us lose all of our abilities to do these things. For most in such a techno age, should our own imaginations fail us, it would be catastrophic. This is why Jesus said we must not concern ourselves with these temporary ideas. Have faith in the creator and allow for him to provide for your needs. In prayer, and in counsil with him, we can speak freely of all things and he will listen. The human race has strayed far from the mainland, and relying solely on our own understanding and abilities. However no matter how many reality survival television stories we see, human enginuity only goes so far. Concern ourselves more with helping one another, serving the Lord, and allowing him to give us what we need. "Need" that is a word that has become a back seat to our daily lives. It's not what we Need, that drives our choices, its what we "Desire". This is what's led to millions across the globe becoming obese, over stressed, over worked, insomniacs, diseased, depressed, criminal minded, selfish, angry, violent, etc etc, need I go on? The mindset of people have become so twisted and far off from where we should be, that especially in most modern nations, the economy and the people in it, are on the brink of collapse. Why? Desires. One might make $1200 a month, but he desires to live in a larger house, or drive a fancier car. Perhaps his kids have to have the finest education, or the largest stock pile of toys known to man. Even smaller desires such as sex, the latest fast food craze, or a new pair of shoes, can escalate to larger desires. Of course modern society fuels it. Money is made, billions are made each years off the word desire. Retail has become a household word these days, internet retail sales, store front retail sales, retail outlets, retail malls, retail supercenters. When my great grandfather was a boy, the word retail meant absolutly nothing. Retail or perhaps retailored meant fixing a pair of hand me down pants, or a double knit sport coat.
Why do we concern our every waking hour with stuff? Do we really need that new car? Or will the old one get us back and forth to the market? Would spending a couple hundred on the old one fix it, or is it just easier to borrow and buy a new one? Desire has a friend these days. It's called credit. Every bank offers it, every check cashing place from one end of town to the other sells it. Every credit card mega company thrives on it. So when desire and credit team up against you, well, the loser always tends to be....well you the consumer. Then the after effect is what? Well you have to pay it back don't you? So longer work hours, more stress, more arguments with the family over it, heavier burdens, perhaps a loss of a home, car or even a marriage. Sound familiar? It should it effects millions of families each year. Did you know that highest level of suicides in the world today are caused from over extended burdens? Kids start school, can't make the grade, parent are dissapointed and because they are stressed and over extended they want Junior to not make the same mistakes they did, so go to college get a 70k a year job so you don't have to borrow like me did. Well what's the outcome? Kids realize, they arn't stupid..., that they have let their parent down out of no fault of their own. They feel the best way to avoid the disapointment is to just leave it all behind, and I don't mean moving to Detroit.
Folks if we would just open our eyes and listen to what Jesus was trying to teach his own stubborn apostles over 2000 years ago. The desires were there then, and are still today. Perhaps the Native Americans understood this principle better than anyone else, and what happened? They were labeled uncivilized, ignornant, blind to progress. Exterminated and ostricized for their simple way of thinking. Simple? Perhaps they were far more brilliant than anyone ever gave them credit for. Its so funny now in our apocalypic age. We are now striving to listen to the Mayan, the Hopi, the many other tribes. Why couldn't we have listened back then? Why can't we change now? Because our focus is not on truth, or reality, but desires. Inner desires to make the world a better place. Better for whom? Better for what? The world was just fine before we ever stepped foot on it. God made it that way. Man in his ignorance and selfishness, felt like Satan did when he was in Heaven. That he could make it better than what God had created. So he crafted and plotted and in his own twisted self centered mindset, lost everything. So will we. It's only a matter of time. Speed is great if your a race car, but the world doesn't work like a race track. Nor does it operate like a machine inside a factory. The world was crafted for peace, simplicity and rules based on nature and the elements. Man was to be a part of it, not to dominate it. So Jesus who was God in the flesh tried to teach us this principle. That only through loving each other, placing aside our own inner desires and obligations for the greater good of the land, the water, the air, and our fellow brothers and sisters, would one truly be at peace.
I will close today with this thought. If there was no monetary financial system, no placement of value for one item over another, no standard of weath or power, and no ideals that gain, progress, or success is better than happiness, contentment, or humbleness, what would tomorrow be like? If you woke up, and knew that the main goals of daily living was to care for your fellow man, to serve the Lord who gave your the air to breath and the foot hold to walk on, to say hello to each other and mean it, to allow Nature and what God has given us to provide for our simple needs. What would it feel like to not be concerned about making a buck? To not worry about who drove what because we had all we needed right here where we were. To learn not how to fly to the moon, or to create some prehistoric monster, but to learn how to grow our food, or how to find water and shelter free from the burdons of a bank or financial institution. To believe in something that we couldn't see but knew it was there watching over us like a true Father. Relying not on our own superior intelligence but on a higher far more powerful creator to guide us and lead us along a more peaceful path. I believe in this world. In this place of contentment. Why? Because we live it each day. My wife and I. To become part of a crazy out of control world view, it to be a crazy out of control minded person. To share in the madness is to become mad yourself. It's inevitable. When a dog who was content to sleep soundly on the porch awaiting his master to feed and provide for him, discovers a pack of wolves consistantly chasing after deer, he will join them and before long will become like those wolves, bitter, hungry, savage and discontent. So has the world become such a pack of wolves, blood thirsty, discontent, savage, and selfish, bent only on the next kill, forgetting who their master truly is, refusing to listen, controled by their own dominant self will.
The next time you have a moment, look back to the past. You'll discover people lived just as long as we do now, lived just as happlily, were born, grew up, and died, all without the luxeries we now have today. Next, for those who like to study on things, research the suicide rate, and depression rate from then to now. Lastly, look at family values then and then now. I read a book call the progress of New England, you need to read it. I discovered that when the word possession was created by humans, it changed the way people saw one another and the world around them. Native Americans had no such word in their vocabulary. Hmmm. Imagine that. They never thought of their surroundings or one another as things to possess. What a concept.
God Bless and may your day be filled with humility and happiness.
"Why do you concern yourself with things of this life?What you shall eat or what you shall clothe yourself with. For is life not more than food or drink, nor yet the body more than clothes? Consider the birds of the air. They neither reap nor sow, nor gather into barns, and yet their heavenly father feeds them. And are you not more beloved of the Father than they? How about the lillies of the field? They neither spin nor toil, and yet their heavenly Father adorns them with rainment far more gracious and elegant than King Soloman himself. And are you not worth more to him than these? So if your heavenly Father loves them, which are hear today and then gathered and thrown into the fire, will he not more so provide for you? Oh ye of little faith."
I thought alot about this verse over the last few years, and I began to see more clearly what he meant. We think of ourselves as pretty crafty people. We invent, we create, we imagine. And yet when a crisis happens, many of us lose all of our abilities to do these things. For most in such a techno age, should our own imaginations fail us, it would be catastrophic. This is why Jesus said we must not concern ourselves with these temporary ideas. Have faith in the creator and allow for him to provide for your needs. In prayer, and in counsil with him, we can speak freely of all things and he will listen. The human race has strayed far from the mainland, and relying solely on our own understanding and abilities. However no matter how many reality survival television stories we see, human enginuity only goes so far. Concern ourselves more with helping one another, serving the Lord, and allowing him to give us what we need. "Need" that is a word that has become a back seat to our daily lives. It's not what we Need, that drives our choices, its what we "Desire". This is what's led to millions across the globe becoming obese, over stressed, over worked, insomniacs, diseased, depressed, criminal minded, selfish, angry, violent, etc etc, need I go on? The mindset of people have become so twisted and far off from where we should be, that especially in most modern nations, the economy and the people in it, are on the brink of collapse. Why? Desires. One might make $1200 a month, but he desires to live in a larger house, or drive a fancier car. Perhaps his kids have to have the finest education, or the largest stock pile of toys known to man. Even smaller desires such as sex, the latest fast food craze, or a new pair of shoes, can escalate to larger desires. Of course modern society fuels it. Money is made, billions are made each years off the word desire. Retail has become a household word these days, internet retail sales, store front retail sales, retail outlets, retail malls, retail supercenters. When my great grandfather was a boy, the word retail meant absolutly nothing. Retail or perhaps retailored meant fixing a pair of hand me down pants, or a double knit sport coat.
Why do we concern our every waking hour with stuff? Do we really need that new car? Or will the old one get us back and forth to the market? Would spending a couple hundred on the old one fix it, or is it just easier to borrow and buy a new one? Desire has a friend these days. It's called credit. Every bank offers it, every check cashing place from one end of town to the other sells it. Every credit card mega company thrives on it. So when desire and credit team up against you, well, the loser always tends to be....well you the consumer. Then the after effect is what? Well you have to pay it back don't you? So longer work hours, more stress, more arguments with the family over it, heavier burdens, perhaps a loss of a home, car or even a marriage. Sound familiar? It should it effects millions of families each year. Did you know that highest level of suicides in the world today are caused from over extended burdens? Kids start school, can't make the grade, parent are dissapointed and because they are stressed and over extended they want Junior to not make the same mistakes they did, so go to college get a 70k a year job so you don't have to borrow like me did. Well what's the outcome? Kids realize, they arn't stupid..., that they have let their parent down out of no fault of their own. They feel the best way to avoid the disapointment is to just leave it all behind, and I don't mean moving to Detroit.
I will close today with this thought. If there was no monetary financial system, no placement of value for one item over another, no standard of weath or power, and no ideals that gain, progress, or success is better than happiness, contentment, or humbleness, what would tomorrow be like? If you woke up, and knew that the main goals of daily living was to care for your fellow man, to serve the Lord who gave your the air to breath and the foot hold to walk on, to say hello to each other and mean it, to allow Nature and what God has given us to provide for our simple needs. What would it feel like to not be concerned about making a buck? To not worry about who drove what because we had all we needed right here where we were. To learn not how to fly to the moon, or to create some prehistoric monster, but to learn how to grow our food, or how to find water and shelter free from the burdons of a bank or financial institution. To believe in something that we couldn't see but knew it was there watching over us like a true Father. Relying not on our own superior intelligence but on a higher far more powerful creator to guide us and lead us along a more peaceful path. I believe in this world. In this place of contentment. Why? Because we live it each day. My wife and I. To become part of a crazy out of control world view, it to be a crazy out of control minded person. To share in the madness is to become mad yourself. It's inevitable. When a dog who was content to sleep soundly on the porch awaiting his master to feed and provide for him, discovers a pack of wolves consistantly chasing after deer, he will join them and before long will become like those wolves, bitter, hungry, savage and discontent. So has the world become such a pack of wolves, blood thirsty, discontent, savage, and selfish, bent only on the next kill, forgetting who their master truly is, refusing to listen, controled by their own dominant self will.
God Bless and may your day be filled with humility and happiness.
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