Who said consider the lilies

God is unmoved, yet always moving in our lives, whether we are in full bloom or not. We are meant to glorify God with our lives. When we allow worry to steer our thoughts and actions, we are not living the fullness Christ died for us to live.

God is bigger than every worry, and we must be obediently faithful to trust and obey His command to release them and live. He also defines worry as unnecessary, unhelpful, unnatural, and unreasonable.

Lilies, and fields of tulips, are beautiful sights after a dark and cold winter. Their beauty surpassing King Solomon who had access to every luxurious and beautiful piece of apparel and possession. And we are more beautiful still. Jesus did not neglect to acknowledge the difficulty of life.

By no means is this a call to ignore the treatment of anxiety and depression when necessary. Our sovereign God has provided a way for those suffering from those ailments to be comforted and healed. We must be aware of and obedient to the wisdom He is faithful to provide. God is sovereign over our worries. By prayer and obedience to His word, we can hand them over to Him.

By the sacrificial death of Christ on the cross, the Holy Spirit lives in every believer. In Christ, we have the power to choose freedom from worry. It is a daily discipline. Sometimes, moment by moment. Consider the flowers and realize your great value and worth to the Creator. Thank you for your peace, Lord! These are trying times we live in. We can plant a bed of tulips or lilies in our yards, stick a picture of one up on our desks or as the wallpaper on our phones, and obediently hand over one worry after another.

The victory is ours. It may not look or feel like victory, but neither did the cross. Day by day, consider the lilies. Consider them. Oh, how He loves us. Jesus coming down to earth to die on our behalf is the greatest expression of love of all time.

He is risen! He will return. The pain and pressure of this world will fade away. Come, Lord Jesus. For more verses on worry and anxiety, click here. It would have been a radical and outrageous statement for Jesus to tell his listeners, living in lack and limitation, that there was no need to worry. Even today, it takes an effort to affirm that Jesus was not speaking in hyperbole; he meant what he said. The same energy of infinite Divinity that provides for all of life will provide for us as well, once we release our insistence on doing it ourselves.

This doesn't mean we don't have to work; lilies, like all of life, have important spiritual functions to perform.

Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.