Daily Reading: Matthew 6
As I read Matthew 6 there is so much to take note of, so much to apply and so much to convict. I go from passage to passage and think of areas of my life that need correction and improvement.
Matthew 6:4 “That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.”
Matthew 6:6 “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”
Matthew 6:18 “That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.”
Three times Jesus reiterated this phrase…thy Father sees what’s done in secret and rewards it openly. Would He have said it three times if He had not meant it? Would He repeat Himself if He did not wish to show us how important it is. Further but spoken previous is the point that verse 1 makes…”Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of you Father which is in heaven.”
I think the main point Jesus was trying to get across was not so much…the way to get a Father’s reward but more importantly…The Father sees! He knows!
Matthew 6:8 “Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”
Matthew 6:14-15 “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: (15) But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Matthew 6: 26 “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?”
Matthew 6:30 “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?”
Matthew 6:32 “(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.”
In eight separate statements, Jesus, emphasizes the truth of who the Father is.
I thought about Jesus’ perspective a bit and how hard it must have been for him to convince people of what He really knew about God. He stood there teaching these people about His Dad. He knew Him and He wanted them to know Him the way He did. He wasn’t trying to teach people not to be materialistic, or vain, or proud, or anything like that…He just wanted them to know His Dad. If we knew God…really knew His personality…we couldn’t be materialistic or self-centered. We wouldn’t struggle with our pride if we knew how in love with us God is. In verse 30 Jesus says…O ye of little faith. He knew that even as He spoke…they weren’t getting it. They were doing what we all do…making a list of what we’re doing right and wrong. They were thinking of ways to improve themselves instead of just resting. Jesus was trying to teach them the basics of faith and we still don’t get it. We search for faith as if it is a plain of higher thinking, but it is not. It is a simple concept of knowing God. God is love, we tell our primary Sunday School children, but we don’t show them how to act when you are loved. We stay busy doing the work of the church and ignoring the kingdom. We seek first the knowledge and allow it to upstage His righteousness and all these things get done by a paycheck that we refuse to let go of, in case God would ask us to send it to Africa.
Matthew 6:34 “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.”
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. How dreadful to think that we so often try to tackle the evils of tomorrow. Each day is guaranteed to have some evil and there is no use planning for it, or planning to combat it until we are faced with it. O ye of little faith…KNOW GOD!