In his Feb. 18 letter, Arthur Saginian wrote to oppose a local writer and share his thoughts. Mr. Saginian quoted portions of the Bible (Matthew 6:25-34) but failed to include a critical and conclusive element of that passage. What Mr. Saginian left out from verses 32 and 33 were, “your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you.” Jesus was telling the people that God knows every one of your needs (food, clothing, etc.) but to not worry about the temporal things of this world. Be more concerned about eternity and your eternal soul. The point here is to seek first for God’s rule in your life (like a ruling King in a kingdom) and find His righteousness (a life that is right with God, which only comes through Jesus — this is the message of good news that righteousness doesn’t come from good works but from a trust in Jesus).
Perhaps the rub is that as natural humans we don’t want to let someone else run our lives, so we resist it. However, the point of this passage in Matthew 6 is that when we acknowledge Jesus as Lord or Master of our lives and trust Him alone for forgiveness of sins and our eternal destiny, then we will truly have peace with God (our Heavenly Father) and enjoy His provision for these temporal things while on Earth. Then verse 34 says we don’t have to worry about tomorrow, because He has it planned out for us.
So I would appeal that there is more here to this story about Jesus. Each person should ask WHY they should trust Jesus for such important and eternal matters. In Matthew 11:4-6 is a great response, “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.’” Jesus demonstrated through those miracles and others that He was and is God and He also has the authority to forgive sins and you can trust all of His words found in the Scriptures. I hope you find that to be a more complete answer or direction on living out this life.
Thanks again to The Signal for the opportunity to publicly share responses to the various contributors of this great local paper!
John R. Dennis
Santa Clarita
