7 POWERFUL GRACES FOR LIVING: SEEK

In our sermon series 7 Powerful Graces for Living, the grace of the week is Seek.  When we hear this word it may not seem like a grace, but more like an exhausting task.  We spend part of our lives searching.  If we are lost, we are seeking to find our way home.  If we are confused, we are searching for clarity.  If we are in turmoil, we are trying to find peace.  In the last year, most of us have been seeking all of these things with little success!  We have found plenty of exhaustion and frustration.  God wants to speak into our lives, our confusion, and our anxiety.  Seeking the right things can bring clarity and comfort to us when nothing else can help us.  This week, we return to the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:25-34.  This is part of the Sermon on the Mount and these words are beautiful, powerful, and extremely practical for today.   Jesus was speaking to people who wondered if God cared for them and they lived their lives by earning enough money to live one day at a time.   How was it possible for them not to worry?  The path to less anxiety is surprising, yet simple, because it depends on what we are looking for.  As you read Matthew 6:25-34, let it fill you heart and soul with God’s deep abiding care!  It is our prayer that you will sense God’s hand lifting you into the peace of his presence.  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? 26 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? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? 28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 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? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (NIV)