The Dove

Posted by Jeffrey Smith July 9th, 2015 2,166 Views 0 Comments

Matthew 6:25-34- Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your
life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is
not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of
the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly
Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you
by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes?
See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell
you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If
that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and
tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of
little faith? So do not worry, saying, What shall we eat? Or What shall we
drink? Or What shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things, and
your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and
his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore
do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has
enough trouble of its own.

The word worry shows up six times in this passage. Do you think
Jesus is trying to get our attention about something? I see this in almost
every book in the Bible.  You see do not worry, be strong and courageous,
take heart, and all the other ways of saying, stop dwelling on something you
don’t need to.  Worry is born out of fear, and fear is the absence of
love, and God is purely love (1 John 4:8). In fact the word says, perfect love
casts our fear (1 John 4:18).

I sit here listening to the haunting song of the mourning dove,
and it is beautiful. Outside there are people coming and going, getting form
one place to another, trying to make deadlines, pay bills, make plans, and do
all kinds of stressful things that lead to fear and worry. We are in a battle
between love and fear. The dove outside does not care about anything other than
making his beautiful song, it is a soothing song. We can learn a lot from the
dove, he is a beautiful creature who is well fed, cared for, covered in
feathers, and his primary job is to sing his song. Worry can take us away from
the peace of Jesus, the love of God, and block us from hearing the Holy Spirit.

No matter what our situation may look like, God loves you, He cares for you, He
will always provide for you. If we have a choice, which we do every time, we
must seek Jesus Christ.  We must seek the righteousness of the kingdom of
God.  We must focus our energy and thoughts on Him, and worry will have no
place to cling to in our hearts and minds. Make no mistake about it, this life
and everything in it is a battle between the truth of Jesus Christ, and fear of
lack. Lack in our lives can be symptomatic of worry and fear. When we know in
our hearts that Jesus will show up every time, we will never let worry set in
and take up shop.

Jesus heals all of us through faith. If you look at all the
healings that are in scripture, He often tells the one He heals, that their
faith has made them well. Well, worry does not do that, He never said, your
worry has freed you from sickness. Faith in Jesus Christ is out of the
abundance of love. We have faith in Jesus because He loves us, and when you
hope and have faith in that unending love, there is nothing that can break
that. Peter, I believe had pure faith for about 20 or so seconds while he
walked on water to Jesus. He started to sink only after he became completely
aware of the storm, taking his eyes off of Jesus. That fear, or worry overtook
Peter to the point of needing Jesus to bail him out of the water from drowning.
This is my point, when we allow faith in Jesus Christ to consume us rather than
fear, there is absolutely nothing we cannot do or see come to pass.  But
even if we fail even for a second, Jesus is there to pull us out for another
try. We have everything to gain by trading worry for faith, and nothing to
lose. We must seek and see Jesus in everything we do, and when that takes place
we have everything we need, everything we desire, and everything we could ever
imagine and more, because we know that from this scripture. The truth is in
this, and it is very clear that the enemy of abundance and love is worry and
fear. Do not worry about your life, Do not worry about what to eat, do not
worry about tomorrow. The supplier is our savior, and our needs are met through
Him. Do not worry about what you do not have, instead focus on Jesus, sing a
sweet song of praise to Him like the dove outside my window.