2nd Thursday of the Great Lent - Gospel Reading - St. Luke 16:1-13

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus

In today's Gospel Reading, Jesus asks us to understand some unusual teachings of His. Let us look into His parable in St. Luke 16:1-13. We all know Jesus usually taught with the help of parables. Here Jesus is using a parable of a steward and his master. Who is a steward? A steward is a person who looks after some one else's property and goods, today we call such a person a store manager.

In the parable, Jesus says that the steward was a thief and he was caught by his master in his thievery and he was demanded the books to show all the accounts so that he could be penalized. But for self-preservation, he took the little bit of time that he had been given to turn the situation to his advantage. He went to many of the customers of his boss and started reducing the money owed by them and gave them discount. Thus he started making friends out of them so that he could go back to them for favor for the favor they received.

This really was an act of thievery; the steward was using money owed to his owner to make friends for himself.  It’s easy to be generous with someone else’s money. 

But what happened to the steward? Anyone listening to the story would have guessed that the steward would get double the punishment he deserved. God hates sin. He had commanded thus, "Thou shall not steal." So naturally we would guess that Jesus would say the story in such a manner that the steward is punished. But surprisingly, it does not happen. Instead, the owner of the steward actually compliment the steward for his shrewdness for taking care of himself with the owner's money. Then, Jesus deliver's the punchline:

"Use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings." - St. Luke 16:9

Jesus asks us to be like the shrewd manager. You might think that Jesus is kidding. Right? No. Jesus never instructs us to lie or cheat. So what then is the instruction Jesus is giving? How are we as God's children to imitate the liar and thief?

Before that we have to realize that just like the steward, even we as God's children have been entrusted with some estate of God's to manage. Every single thing that we own belongs to God, it all comes from Him and returns to Him. The early fathers of the church wrote about it thus - Gaudentius writes:

“In this world nothing is really ours. … we have been entrusted with the stewardship of the goods of our Lord, either to use them, with giving of thanks, according to our needs, or to distribute them to our fellow servants according as they need. … it is not lawful to misuse indiscriminately the means that have been committed to us, or to claim the right to extravagant expense and display; for we must render an account of our stewardship to the Lord when He comes.”

Likewise, Chrysostom writes:

“We are not placed in this life as lords in our own houses, but as guests and strangers … He who is now rich in a moment is a beggar.  Therefore, whoever you may be, know that you are but an administrator of things that belong to Another. You have been given the right of brief and passing use of them.  Therefore cast out of your soul the pride of dominion, and put on instead the modesty and humility of a steward.”

It's so easy to imagine that whatever you have worked for and earned belong to you alone. Right? And it is correct to always hold on to it with an iron grip. God says, "Think again. I am glad to let you use these things for a little while. But don't get too attached and don't get proud that you have these things. Use them wisely. Especially use them to make friends for you and for Me, as did that steward."

How do make friends with money, and other goods? You know the answer to that! By giving it away. It's easy to be generous with someone else's money, as Martin Luther wrote:

Whoever wants to be a Christian must gladly, willingly and benevolently help the one who is in need and give wherever he can.  This is serving God, and He will ultimately reward you.  On the other hand, the skinflints and profiteers who can do nothing but pinch pennies and give nothing to anyone, or very sparingly, served the accursed devil, who will also reward them in kind.”

Don't misunderstand what Luther when he says God will reward you. You can't buy your way into heaven by giving money away, whether to a beggar or the Church. But when you give it way, two things happen. First, being a Christian, you make friends for God – people come to see the God you serve as generous, loving and good through your generosity, love and goodness.

Second, when you give it away you are fighting the good fight of faith.  Faith believes God when He says, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  Faith trusts and thanks God for all that you need to support this body and life, but ultimately believes that this world is not your home; that you are but a stranger here, heaven is your home.

Such faith is given to you by God, is exercised by fighting the good fight of faith, and ultimately is rewarded when you receive the goal of your faith, the salvation of your soul.  That salvation is the one thing that God wants you to have and hold forever. 

Our God, Jesus the Christ, was willing to give it all away for you.  He laid down His entire life at the cross that you might His life up as your own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.

No one can serve two masters.  You cannot serve God and mammon.  As for you and your house, may you serve the Lord who gives eternal life!

Your brother in Christ Jesus

Jobin George

Source: http://www.historiclectionary.com/2009/08/sermon-trinity-9-st-luke-161-13/

2nd Wednesday of the Great Lent - Gospel Reading - St. Matthew 18:1-11

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus
Hope your Lenten season is a blessed season in prayer and fasting. Today I would like you to concentrate on the Gospel Reading from the Book of St. Matthew 18:1-11. I would like to concentrate on the following 2 verses from the whole teaching of Jesus that we read today -
"I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven." - St. Matt. 18:3
"What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting." - St. Matt. 18:7
Dear  friends we see here again that Jesus wants us to overlook the preoccupations of this world and the fame that comes along with it. He wants us to concentrate on Him and love Him and not lose sight of Him while we are working with the organization of Jesus' earthly kingdom. We are not to lose sight of the divine purpose. Now a days, just like the disciples, we are mainly aiming for the worldly fame and position that comes when we work for Jesus. We tend to lose sight of Jesus and His way. He calls us to trust in Him like children, because children are trusting by nature.

And since the children trust the adults, they are easily led to Christ. We are to be like children in our trust in Jesus and also we are to lead children to Jesus. God holds parents and other adults accountable for how they influence their little ones. Jesus warned that anyone who turns little children away from their faith in Him will receive severe punishment.

Jesus also warns us against temptation and tempting others to sin. As leaders, we are to help the young ones or new believers or those who are going through troubled times avoid anything and anyone that might cause them to stumble in their faith and lead them to sin. We must remove the stumbling blocks in our lives and then in our neighbor's lives that causes us to sin. Any relationship, activity or practice that leads to sin should be stopped.

Dear brethren, hope you have a blessed Lenten season and may the death of Jesus be a death of sins in your lives and the resurrection of Jesus, a new life in Jesus. May God bless you all and keep you. Please do keep me in your prayers.

Your brother in Christ
Jobin

2nd Monday of the Great Lent - Gospel Reading - St. Luke 6:27-36

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus

I hope you all had a blessed week. I apologize for missing out on some days of the Lent last week, it was due to some work pressures and I was unable to write. But as we enter the second week of the Great Lent, the church asks us to concentrate on some of the deeper teachings of Jesus Christ. For today, the Gospel reading is St. Luke 6:27-36. Jesus is teaching us about loving our enemies and the topic is so huge that it would take me many days to really get into the crux of it because each and every verse in this portion is important and I will be writing on it completely in the series "Demands of Jesus". But, for today, I will be concentrating on just this one verse...

Love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. St. Luke 6:27-28

Jesus' asking us to love our enemies, to be merciful, to make peace, and to forgive assumes that there will always be people around us who will always to hard to love. 

Jesus calls some people our "enemies", which means they are against us. They want to see us fail. Love them, says Jesus (Matt.5:44; Luke 6:27,35). 

Others may not be our personal enemies in this way, but simply people whose character or personality or condition makes them unattractive or even repulsive. Jesus says, Be merciful to them (Matt.5:7; 18:33; Luke 10:37).

Others may be our relatives or friends who have taken offense at something we have done - rightly or wrongly - and the relationship is cold or non-existent. Jesus says, Strive to be reconciled to them (Matt. 5:23-26)

Others may or may not have something against you, but you do against them. Forgive them, Jesus says (Matt. 6:14-15). Don't let laziness or pride or anger keep you from the humble work of forgiving, peacemaking and reconciliation.

The demand of Jesus that we are to love our enemies also assumes that we WILL have enemies and that not all will be reconciled to us, not matter what we do. He shows us that having enemies is not necessarily a bad thing but may mean that we are keeping in step with him. "Blessed are you when other revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account" (Matt. 5:11). In fact, Jesus warned that is there was no persecution, it may be a sign of being more like a false prophet than like Jesus. Enmity between the world and the followers of Jesus is rooted in the truth that the world rejects Him (John 18:37) and in the deep difference Jesus makes when He changes a person (John 15:19; 17:14). Therefore we should not assume that if we have enemies we must have done something wrong. That may be true, and we should search our hearts for unnecessary offences and repent, but Jesus said very plainly that faithful disciples will have enemies.

It is remarkable that Jesus draws attention to not just severe persecution but also to mere snubbing as the kinds of enmity we must deal with. Evidently He thinks we need to be told not only to love when our life s threatened, but also to love when our ego is threatened by a mere slight. Consider the range of enmity He mentions-

We are to love those who persecute us (Matt. 5:44), hate us (Luke 6:27), curse us, abuse us (Luke 6:28), strike us on the cheek, take our cloak (Luke 6:29). Those are all behaviors that would typically hurt us deeply, either physically or emotionally or both, and might kill us (Matt. 10:21; Luke 11:49). To all these behaviors we are to respond in love.  Jesus says, don't just love the person who acknowledges you and recognize you and do good things for you. Love the persecutor, and love the person who simply acts as if you are not alive.

Dear Brethren in Christ Jesus

I now stop here to let you ponder on the above words. I will most definitely explain more about this demand of Jesus to love our enemies in detail some other time. Till then, please do ponder on the what is such love? What does it look like? How much does it involve?

Your Brother in Christ Jesus

Jobin

Day 5 - 1st Friday of the Great Lent - Gospel Reading

"But I warn you - unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven." - St. Matt. 5:20

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus

As we enter the 5th Day of the Great Lent, I would like to bring your attention to the words of our Savior, Jesus Christ from today's Gospel reading of St. Matthew 5:17 - 26. Here after giving the Beatitudes, Jesus says that He did not come to abolish the laws, but to fulfill them. And He also says that even the smallest detail of the law will not disappear until its purpose is achieved. 

Not going into the details of the Mosaic laws, Jesus expects us to still follow the principles behind them - to worship and love a holy God. The principles behind the commands are timeless and should always guide our conduct. Also the law reveals the nature and will of God, which still applies today. So coming to the verse that I have decided to focus on-

YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS MUST EXCEED THAT OF THE PHARISEES

Jesus said that we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven if our righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees (Matt. 5:20). What did Jesus mean by those words? Are we to out-Pharisee the Pharisees? Pharisees were the most meticulous Jewish students of the Mosaic law and the most rigorous enforcers of its details. Tradition has it that there were 246 positive commandments in the Law (the first five books of the Bible) and 365 prohibitions. Getting these right and keeping them meticulously was the vocation of the Pharisees. So are we to be more meticulous than them and shaping our behavior around them?

John Stott answers thus:

It is not so much, shall we say, that Christians succeed in keeping some 240 commandments when the best Pharisees may only have scored 230. No. Christian righteousness is greater than pharisaic righteousness because it is deeper, being a righteousness of the heart... The righteousness which is pleasing to (God) is an inward righteousness of mind and motive. For "the Lord looks on the heart".

The reason why Jesus said such words are because, the teachers and the Pharisees were experts at telling others what to do, but they missed the central point of God's law themselves. The Pharisees were scrupulous in their attempts to follow the law but their weakness was that they were content to obey the laws outwardly without allowing God to change their heart (or attitudes). They looked pious, but they were far from the Kingdom of Heaven. God judges our hearts as well as our deeds, for it is in the heart that our true allegiance lies.

Jesus was saying that we needed a different kind of righteousness altogether (out of love for God), not just a more intense version of the Pharisees' obedience. Our righteousness must

1. come from what God does in us, not what we can do ourselves,
2. be God-centered, not self-centered,
3. be based on reverence for God, not approval from people, and
4. go beyond keeping the law to living by the principles behind the law.

We should be just as concerned about our attitudes that people don't see, as about our actions that are seen by all.

Dear Brethren in Christ Jesus, let us always ask our God and Father in prayer, to change our hearts and to make us centered in Him and to be sufficient in Him rather than on ourselves. May this Lenten season be a blessing unto us all.

Your Brother in Christ

Jobin George

Day 4 - 1st Thursday of the Lent - Gospel Reading

"Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else." - St. Mark 9:35

"But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around your neck." - St. Mark 9:42

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus

As we enter the fourth day of the Great Lent, I would like to take your attention to the above two key verses  of today's Gospel Reading which is taken from the Gospel of St. Mark 9:30-42.

As we start reading, Jesus is seen to be predicting His death, interestingly it is also His last tour through the region of Galilee after leaving Caesarea Philippi. Since the time the 12 disciples started following Jesus, there has been a constant struggle among them regarding their importance in their group, as to who is greater than the other. Even today, in our daily lives, we are always caught up in our struggles to get famous in life. But do we really compare our motives to what God has set for our lives? It is always painful to compare our motive's to Christ. It is not wrong for believers to be industrious or ambitious, but when ambition pushes aside obedience and service, it becomes sin. Pride and insecurity can cause us to overvalue position and prestige. The only safe ambition is directed towards Christ's Kingdom, not our own advancement. We must renounce pride and status seeking, because they are Satan's tools, not Christ's.

Further Jesus describes leadership from a new perspective. Instead of using people, we are to serve them. Serving others is real leadership. Jesus Himself set up the example by coming down from His Heavenly abode in the form of the humble man to be slaughtered like a sacrificial lamb. He teaches us that a real leader should have a serving heart. What is the benefits of a serving heart? Servant leaders appreciate other's worth and realize they are not above any job. If you see something needs to be dons, then take the initiative and do it like a faithful servant, without expecting high positions, honors, special privileges. Do the job to glorify Christ in your work and to help others.

Lastly He is giving a warning to those who lead others astray on the wrong paths. We as followers of Christ Jesus are meant to show others the way to Jesus. But how do we do that? In our church, we can be leaders, speakers and teachers to teach the young ones about Christ. But is that the only way? We are to guide others to Christ, even those with weak faith by setting an example with our own lives. Through Christian fellowship. But beware, those who teach wrong teachings about Christ to lead the weak astray.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, lets all pray to our loving Father in Heaven that He may help us to make Christ's Kingdom our ambition in life and to do all that we do with a serving heart. Let us also pray that we may be able to guide the lost and the unfaithful to the true Light of the world.

Your Brother in Christ Jesus

Jobin

Great Lent - Day 2 Gospel Reading

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ

As we go through the Great Lent, I would like to concentrate on the Gospel readings during the 50 days. Yesterday I was not able to post anything since I was travelling. Hope this Lenten season  would be blessing to us all.

Tuesday Morning - St. Mark 4:1-20

Today's Gospel reading is all about the Parable of the Four Soils. We all know the parable told by Jesus about a farmer going to his farm to sow his seeds and the seeds falling on different types of soil. I would like to bring your attention to what Jesus means by this parable and its importance during this Lenten season.

This parable has been mostly shown to represent four different ways people respond to God's message. Usually we think that Jesus was talking about four different types of people. But He may also have been talking about

1) different times or phases in a person's life or

2) how we willingly apply God's message to some areas of our life but resist applying it to others.

Examples:

1) When a person is in his/her adolescence, entering a stage when the worldly pleasures hold sway over them, the Word of God is like falling on footpath or on the shallow soil. The Word may sprout but it soon wilted under the pressure of the worldly temptations, since it did not have deep roots. 

2) Most of us are quick to apply the teachings of Jesus in one part of our lives, such as you may be open to God about your future but closed concerning how you spend your money. You may respond like good soil to God's demand for worship but respond like rocky soil to His demand to give people in need.

Worries of life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for things plague our daily lives. This makes our daily life so over-crowded that it leaves no time and space for God's Word and leaves us unfruitful to them.

During this Lenten season, let us make our lives less crowded with pleasures of life and let us give importance to the pleasures of the soul, i.e listening to the Word of God and heeding them in all aspects of our life.

Let this Lenten season be a blessing unto us all.

Your Brother in Christ Jesus

Jobin

Demands of Jesus - Do Not be Anxious About the Necessities of Daily Life - 4

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In the last session, Part 3, we started t understand some of the reasons why Jesus said to His not to be anxious about the necessities of daily life. We learned that we ought not to be anxious about food and clothing because they cannot provide the great things of life - the enjoyment of God, the pursuit of His gracious favor and the hope of eternity in His presence.

Let us now learn some more reasons...

YOU CANNOT ADD ONE CUBIT TO YOUR SPAN OF LIFE

The thirdd reason not to be anxious is that it's fruitless. "And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life?" (Matt. 6:27). The argument is very pragmatic: Anxiety doesn't get you anywhere. It doesn't do you any good. Whatever problem is causing you to feel anxious. you can be sure your anxiety will not reduce the problem. It will only make you miserable while you try to deal with it. So don't be anxious. It's useless.

CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD

The fourth reason Jesus gives for not being anxious is based on the lilies. "And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all His glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today s alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" (Matt. 6:28-30).

When you look at a lily, which has no will or instinct of its own to labor and spin, yet is adorned with beautiful form and color, Jesus says you should draw at least this one conclusion: God delights to adorn things. But if His delight finds expression in adorning grass that's here today and gone tomorrow, then surely His delight His delight in adornment will express itself in how He clothes His children!

But someone may protest, "God has not adorned me!" Or: "God has not adorned the poor Christians in many destitute situations around the world." That's true. Very few followers of Jesus are dressed like Solomon. But we couldn't do our work if we were. That's why Jesus spoke about John the Baptist: "Behold, those who are dressed n splendid clothing and live in luxury are in kings' courts" - but not John the Baptist! He had prophetic work to do and wore "a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey" (Luke 7:25; Matt. 3:4). "Among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist" (Matt. 11:11). The adornment Jesus promised does not mean that we will have exorbitant clothes, but that we will have the clothes we need. Where have you ever seen a disciple of Jesus who dd not have the adornment he needed to do what God had called him to do?

But let's be careful. We must not measure the perfection of God's provision by some standard below His calling. He does not call us to live in palaces, but to take up our crosses and love people no matter the cost. And when we have finished carrying our crosses - on torn shoulders, if God wills - there will be kingly robes for us all. The promise to meet all our needs does not mean He will make us rich. It does not even mean He will keep us alive ("some of you they will put to death," Luke 21:16). It means He will give us all that we need to do the will of God. 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ

These are some of the reasons why you should not be anxious about the food and clothing that you will be having tomorrow. Lets pray to our All Providing Father to grant us what we need in our daily life according to His immeasurable love. 

Please do keep this humble servant of Jesus in your prayers

"The Lord bless you and keep you; 

The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; 

The Lord lift His countenance upon you, And give you peace." - Numbers 6:24-26

Demands of Jesus - Do Not be Anxious About the Necessities of Daily Life - 2

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus

In the last session, we learned about Jesus' demand for us not to be anxious about our life, but to seek first the Kingdom of God - to make God the King in our life and in every affair. Let us now learn at least some of the reasons why Jesus says to His disciples not to be anxious.

LIFE IS MORE THAN FOOD, AND THE BODY IS MORE THAN CLOTHING

Matt. 6:25 says "Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on." Why? "Because life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing." What does this mean?

Why do we ted to get anxious about food and clothing? Because there are three things that we would lose if we didn't have food and clothing. First, we would lose some pleasures. After all, food tastes good. Second, we would lose some human praise and admiring glances if we didn't have nice clothes. Third, we would possibly lose our life if we had no food at all or weren't protected from the cold. So the reason we get anxious about food and clothing is because we don't want to lose physical pleasures or human praise or life.

To this fear Jesus responds: If you are gripped by anxiety over these things, you have lost sight of the greatness of life. Life was not given primarily for physical pleasures, but for something greater - the enjoyment of God (Luke 12:21). Life was not given primarily for the approval of man but for something greater - the approval of God (John 5:44). Life was not given primarily for the extension on this earth, but for something greater - eternal life with God in the age to come (John 3:16).

We ought not to be anxious about food and clothing because food and clothing cannot provide the great things of life - the enjoyment of God, the pursuit of His gracious favor, the hope of eternity in His presence. We get anxious about food and clothing to the same degree that we lose sight of the great purposes of a God-centered life.

LOOK AT THE BIRDS OF THE AIR

The second reason Jesus gives for not being anxious is in Matthew 6:26: "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds  them. Are you not of more value than they?" What we see when we look at the birds is not a lesson in laziness, They dig their worms and snatch their bugs and pad their nests with strings and leaves. But Jesus says it is God who feeds them. Birds don't anxiously hoard things as though God will not do the same tomorrow. They go about their work - and we should go about our work - as though, when the sun comes up tomorrow, God will still be God.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, with this I complete two of the eight reasons why we are not to be anxious about tomorrow. Let the grace of our Father, the love of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be a guidance unto us all. Please uphold me, a sinful servant of Jesus in your prayers.

Your Brother in Christ

Jobin

Source: "What does Jesus Demands from the World" by John Piper

Demands of Jesus - Do Not Be Anxious About the Necessities of Daily Life - 1

Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  - MATT. 6:25

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.  - MATT. 6:34

Dear Bothers and Sisters in Christ Jesus

Welcome once again to the series of Demands of Jesus. This time I will be concentrating on the demand of Jesus to not be anxious about the necessities of your daily life, for God Almighty provides all of these for us. The following has been taken from the book "What does Jesus Demand from the World" by John Piper

There have been kings who find it very effective to keep their subjects in constant anxiety. If the people are anxious about their life and worry about where their next meal is coming from, then perhaps they will be more than willing to do the king's bidding in order to get the food they need from the king's storehouse. Anxiety keeps them in their place. Fear makes the monarchy firm.

JESUS DOES NOT SECURE HIS KINGSHIP BY CULTIVATING ANXIETY

But one of the greatest things about Jesus is that He does not want His people to be anxious. He doe snot secure His kingship by cultivating anxiety. On the contrary, the aim of Jesus' kingship is to free us from anxiety. He doesn't need to keep us anxious in order to establish His power and superiority. They are untouchable and invincible. Instead, He exalts His power and superiority by working to take away anxiety.

When Jesus says, "Do not be anxious about tomorrow," He is demanding the kind of life that everybody would want - no anxiety. No fear of man or menacing circumstances. But how does Jesus expect this demand to come true when we see things all around us that make us anxious? Jesus gives us help in two extended treatments about anxiety and fear, one having to do with anxiety over the basics of life, like food, drink, clothing (Matt. 6:25-34), then the other having to do with anxiety over the hurt that men can do to us (Matt.10:24-31). In the first passage Jesus sustains our ability to press on joyfully when we can't see how all our needs will be met. In the second passage, which I deal with in the next series, Jesus motivates us to press on boldly in the cause of truth when people threaten us.

THE ANXIETIES OF DAILY LIFE

Everyone can plainly see Jesus' point of view in Matt.6:25-34. "Do not be anxious". 

Verse 25: "Do not be anxious about your life". 

Verse 31: "Do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?'"

Verse 34: "Do not be anxious about tomorrow."

But that is the negative way of stating the main point of this passage. There is a positive way found in verse 33-namely, instead of being anxious, "Seek first the kingdom of God." In other words, when you think about your life or your food or your clothes - or your spouse or your job or your mission - don't fret about them. Instead, make God the King in that affair and in that moment. That is, hand over the situation to His kingly power, and do His righteous will with the confidence that He will work for you and meet all your needs. If we believe in the kingship of our heavenly Father, we do not need to be anxious about anything. Virtually everything else in this series which will be following is support for Jesus' demand.

In the following sessions I will be stating at least eight reasons Jesus gives for His disciples not to be anxious.

Hope you all do have a wonderful and blessed week ahead. May the God Almighty bless you all and keep you in all your ways.

Please uphold this sinner in your prayers.

Your Brother in Christ Jesus

Jobin George