“Therefore I say to you, do not worry 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? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet their Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:28)
I was thinking a lot about what has been motivating me these past few months. A song by Maverick City Music titled “Jireh” stuck out a lot.
We give our God labels based on His character- teacher, father, creator, etc. “Jireh” is all about how just God being God is enough. Jehovah-Jireh translates into “The Lord will provide”. And He will!
Up at the top of this blog I quoted Matthew 6:28, which says how God watches over and feeds and provides for these creatures who are so much smaller and feeble than we are. If he’s doing all that for those creatures, how much more would He do those same things for us, and in more abundance?
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, will He not much more clothe you, o you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:23-30)
One of my favorite verses in the songs sings, “If He dresses the lilies with beauty and splendor, how much more will He clothe you”. When I think of God “clothing” His children, I don’t think about material clothes, but rather, being clothed in grace and mercy and joy. If he can make the lilies so beautiful, how much more beautiful does He want to make your soul?
I think the cherry on top for this phrase- how much more, came when I was reading in Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews is speaking about how before the new covenant, priests had to make a lot of offerings of themselves, multiple times, in attempt to cleanse the sins of themselves and their followers. Yet, Jesus made the ultimate offering, the ultimate sacrifice, the once and for all sacrifice, so get this-
“For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh (talking about the old covenant between man and God), how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscious from dead works to serve the living God?”
AMEN to that! How much more does the blood of Christ cleanse? A lot more! Infinitely more! Perfectly more!
So, when I think about what motivates me, I think about how much more God loves each and every one of us, and how He loved us so much that he gave his Son, who did so much more than we could have ever asked for or deserved, by giving His life on that cross. So I want to encourage anybody who has made it this far in this post, to never forget
God loves you. He loves you even when you don’t feel it, even when you don’t feel anything. The love God has for his people is saturated in every word of the Bible, go check it out for yourself 🙂
I am familiar with this verse. As a mother of 4 and a stay at home mom with only one income, I relied on this verse for many years, reminding myself that God will provide. If God will provide for the birds then I know he’s got me. But what I failed to remember is that He doesn’t just say he’s going to provide, but that He says “how much more” . I always thought it was more about material needs that He would provide, but looking back, I see now that is more about clothing us in Joy, Peace, Grace, and Mercy. Don’t get me wrong, He provided in so many miraculous ways. (we never went hungry) But we had an over abundance of Peace and Joy in our house. Alyssa, it seems you are much more wiser than I ever was at your age. What a great gift.