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Hope for Tomorrow
March 23, 2020
So what about tomorrow? I got through today with God’s help, so what’s next – what will I face tomorrow?
That’s a fairly expected question. It’s seems that our society has made that something normal to ask. And, especially in our current situation with the sickness going around, we are wondering what about tomorrow. I posted a meme the other day, that I copied from a friend, which said this…
“Dear Everybody
Since I’ve not pastored people thru a pandemic before, I don’t know all the answers. But I’m paying attention to science and praying for wisdom. Together, we’ll take courage, be patient, consider the least of these and press onward while loving our neighbors. Love – Your Pastor. PS – WASH YOUR HANDS!!!”
Now I believe that the PS line is actually from James 4:8 (NIV) Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
That was a joke – all ya’all – you should have laughed there!!!
Seriously, Jesus spoke to this and Matthew and Luke both write it down. Jesus is preaching His Sermon on the Mount Beginning chapter 5 in Matthew and after the “Beatitudes,” He speaks on many other subjects. It’s a great sermon – read it you have time to do so!
Towards the end of Chap. 6, Matthew records this section of Scripture, and I have a title in my Bible: “DO NOT WORRY.”
Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV) “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.
It’s easy in times like these, for us to experience worry about the problems we have. And it’s fairly easy for us to adopt problems we don’t yet have, or even adopt someone else’s problems as if they are our own. It’s so easy to play what I call the what if game.
Now, I am not telling you that you shouldn’t be wise and be prepared for some emergency to happen – that is simply good sense. If you live in earthquake territory, prepare for an earthquake. If you live in tornado country, prepare for a twister to come through.
Currently, my suspicion regarding the over purchasing of toilet paper and water is that people were not prepared, and Then were scared – seriously frightened – and operated out of shear terror, buying up all the TP and H2O.
There are some wise things that all of us can do to be prepared in case of emergency. I am going to assume that after this pandemic subsides, there will be extra water in every garage and at least one extra case of toilet paper from Costco and an extra gallon of bleach. Do not throw your intelligence out the window. We should all responsibly prepare for emergency.
When the Bible talks about worry or anxiousness it addresses something that goes beyond what used to be called common sense – like being prepared for an emergency.
I often joke about one of my grandmothers. She used to worry about a lot of things. In fact I’m certain that none of the rest of the family needed to worry because she worried enough for all of the family.
There are 365 scriptures in the Bible, that deal with worry and anxiousness. Which means God knew what we would need, and He put it in there so that when we need it, we could have one Scripture each day to remind us to rely upon Him, and STOP WORRYING. That’s pretty important.
Remember on Friday and Saturday last week, in our devotion I talked about TODAY. And how to understand what God’s Word says to us TODAY about TODAY. If we are going to understand what the Word of God says to us TODAY, we need to understand what He was saying back then (because I’m certain there aren’t any of us who lived through the Journey in the Wilderness).
So – let’s go back – all the way back to Exodus, The Exodus. Here’s the story in my paraphrase. Remember if you were a first century Israelite, Your identity was wrapped up in a couple of ideas. First – Child of Abraham – who had covenant with God – the promise that God made to Abraham about how all the nations of the world would be saved through the nation that Abraham would be the father.
Now, if we grew up in church, we sang it. We sang it and did the motions. We sang it at the top of our lungs. We sang it in Jr. Church, Sunday School, and Vacation Bible School, and any time us kids were getting antsy – WE SANG IT!
“Father Abraham, had many sons. Many sons had father Abraham…” (It gets stuck in your head now doesn’t it, just consider that my gift to you for TODAY – LOL).
The second thing, is that God delivered the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt. It was all wrapped up in the remembrance of The Passover. As the last plague to hit Egypt and Pharaoh, God sends the Angel of Death. They were to sacrifice a lamb, spread it’s blood on the doorposts and this would be a sign for the Angel of Death to pass-over the house, saving the firstborn of that home from certain death. And then this caused the Exodus…mass leaving from Egypt.
Well – from Egypt they go to the desert. And wouldn’t you know it, there were a few who just didn’t like change. Funny how we are the same way in church today, ironically funny. You don’t believe me, change something in the church, not something that’s a written rule in church but change something that’s unwritten. Guaranteed there is a “Back to Egypt Committee” who you didn’t even know existed in church. And just like Moses and Aaron dealt with in the desert, they will tell you it was better back then. My experience has been that the changes today are not near as terrible as people play them out to be, and the days of yesteryear were never as good as those same people thought.
Think about this for a minute. The “Back to Egypt Committee” that Moses and Aaron had to deal with thought that being enslaved was better than being with God all because they got table scraps is ridiculous. Because slavery is not living, it is simply existing. The same way we are when we are without God in our lives – we simply exist. But when Jesus comes into our life, and we give Him permission to craft and shape us into the person that He created us to be – that’s when we truly begin to live (we are born again, the old is new and new life begins).
Let’s get back to the story, it’s in Exodus chapter 16. You have time to read this – you should read the story for yourself in its entirety – my paraphrase is this. The people realize they’re in the desert, they aren’t sure where the next meal is coming from, they get worried about it. In their grumbling, they sin against God, Moses, and Aaron. So God gives them Manna and Quail. But there’s a catch, well not really a catch – God is teaching them. If you look at the story of the Israelites, you will see that God is always teaching them. Kind of like how we see Jesus in the New Testament, Isn’t He always teaching or answering questions about His teaching? Certainly.
Here ‘s the lesson for today. The Israelites just experienced the 10 plagues. They were rescued by God from slavery, and for some reason they didn’t realize that the God who delivered them from Egypt wouldn’t know that they needed food and water. So they grumble – I don’t me complain, or comment, or even suggest – I mean they grumble to the point of sinning.
God hears their grumbling, (that’s the Back to Egypt Committee) And so God’s solution is to teach them to rely fully on Him and every morning they have Manna to collect. But they are to only pick up what their household needs for that day – except Friday. On Fridays, they get to pick up a double portion so they can rest on Saturday – Sabbath.
Now wouldn’t you know that some of them didn’t obey. And they picked up and saved more than what they were told to pick up. And the Bible tells us that the manna which was left over rotted. It was filled with maggots.
Later on that week, each evening God sent quail to die around them so they would have meat. As if making the Manna appear each morning wasn’t enough for the Israelites.
Let me ask you this, has God provided for you today? Did He provide for you yesterday? Do you think He’s got tomorrow taken care of? Right – Jesus Himself told us do not worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will have its own issues/problems soon enough.
I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t do what I’m doing right now, except that I have Jesus working in me and through me. This – what you see each day here during the devotion time, does not happen on my own strength. I have to rely upon Christ Jesus to get me through the next hour, let alone the next day.
That’s the real lesson here. We need our foundation to be Jesus in everything we do. Because when He is our hope and trust, everything else takes its place in the priority list
and I realize that gaining all the stockpiles of supplies is not going to get me to heaven - my relationship with Jesus is what will do that.
Jesus said that there are two things that are of the utmost importance, love God with everything you are, and love others as you love yourself. That’s another devotion for another day, and we’ll get to it - I promise.
You see our foundation has to be that we believe Jesus to be who He says He is – not was – is. And we place our tomorrows in His hands.