Saturday, March 3, 2018
Let yourself go
Matthew 6:25
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?
Jesus is pushing us to an unnatural place. Jesus really wants us to let ourselves go. We don’t want to do that. We have been brought up to take care of ourselves.
For most of us, personal wellbeing and personal security are paramount. Especially today when chronic illnesses and diseases are rampant we are more and more concerned about what we shall eat.
Our meals should not have too much salt, it should not have too much sugar, it must not have gluten, it must not have too many carbs, it must not have this or that or the other. In other words, our food must not taste good.
Further, if we could just get organised to get to the gym on schedule to burn the calories, tone the muscles, and otherwise torture ourselves we’d be even in better shape. Tasteless food and battered body all organised by a personal trainer.
We can add to all of that the preoccupation many persons now have with style and fashion. The new brand world introduced us to clothing at another level. We don’t just wear a shirt or a pair of pants. We don’t just get the dress or the handbag. Everything we wear or carry must be adorned with the makers brand. Of course, the bigger the brand the more expensive the items, and apparently, the better you should look.
Then, there is personal grooming, salons, barber-shops, spas, and so on are growing exponentially. I usually wonder how did we get our hair cut and nails trimmed when I was growing up. I don’t remember my mother ever going for a manicure or facial. As to hair, the trend these days is to go natural. I was in shock to discover that when we go natural we still have to visit the salon just as much as when the hair was chemically processed.
Finally, this is an age when we have taken the need for self-improvement and personal development to a whole new level. Beyond our formal education and training, we need a life coach, a personal development specialist, and so on. All of these guys have replaced our grandfather and big brother, in helping us to handle life.
The point here today is not to suggest that we should all look bad, or smell bad, or all walk around like monks in a monastery, or like nuns in a habit. We do have a responsibility to take care of ourselves properly. We shouldn’t just let ourselves go.
However, Jesus said that we should. Jesus said that we tend to take on these matters to a point that we are so consumed by them that we live in worry. There is limited value in our efforts at self-sufficiency because most of the efforts can’t really sustain us the way we imagine. Here is the question that He asked, “Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” Matthew 6:27
We should take care of ourselves, but when taking care of ourselves becomes an obsession, when taking care of ourselves is such a preoccupation that we are always worried about ourselves. When taking care of ourselves is so consuming that we have no place left for the proper worship of God and no places for the activities in service of God, we have a really big problem.
The guy we looked at recently with the really big harvest was so obsessed that he started talking to himself. “And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”” Luke 12:19
When we are obsessed with self-sufficiency and self-preservation, none of which we are actually capable of, we remove ourselves from God’s care, God’s provision, and God’s preservation. We should never get to the place where we believe that the things we have achieved were achieved by our own strength.
God told the children of Israel, Deuteronomy 8, that when they eat and prosper and do well they should not say in their hearts that, “My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.” Deuteronomy 8:17. They were warned to remember the Lord their God, “for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.” Deuteronomy 8:18
Of course, this issue is a matter of faith and how we exercise it. We work ourselves into a place where we are convinced that we have to do this by ourselves for ourselves. Even if we don’t talk to ourselves like the guy with the big harvest who was set to expand his barns we certainly demonstrate this in our attitudes, choices, and priorities.
To really let ourselves go though, requires that our faith be fully operational. There is a cliché that says, “let go and let God” but though we say that, and it sounds good, we keep ourselves firmly in charge.
So, like we said yesterday, Jesus had to find an extreme example to teach the lesson. He went to the animal kingdom for very visible and practical examples of faith in God. “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Matthew 6:26
We should really let ourselves go. We should indeed, let go and let God. We should really trust Him with tomorrow.
Think on these things:
- How important are professional grooming and brands to you?
- How much of your time is spent on yourself compared with the time you spend on others?
- What are the things that you worry about the most?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would learn to let ourselves go in God.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex