Luke 12:22-34 - "Do Not Fear, Little Flock..."

Again, I want to thank all my dear friends who responded toour pleas for prayer for my grandson Luke and his extensive brain surgery thispast Friday! The surgery and the recovery went well, and “Praise the LORD”, hewas able to go home yesterday afternoon! Your prayers, and the Lord’s miraculoushealing hand, made this possible! Thank you! Thank you! It is amazing to me how this passage in Luke 12:22-34,along with Dr. Towns devotion today for April 01, from 365 Ways to Know God,entitled: JESUS: THE LORD OF PEACE, is exactly what we needed for this periodof time, and crisis in our lives. God’s timing and reminders are always exactlyon time!!!! You can always trust Him! So far in Luke 12, we have learned that we should “bewareof hypocrisy”, we should “beware of covetousness”, and we should “beware ofworry”. It is interesting to me how all of these sins are linked to each other.And for sure, hypocrisy, pretending to be something that we are not, and covetousness,lusting and desiring things that we really don’t need, always lead to this incapacitatingemotion that we call worry! They “strangle” and destroy us, they deceive usinto believing a false view of life and of God. We are attempting to live a lifethat will never ever satisfy or fulfill us. Not only does worry destroy and deceive us, but it can alsodeform us. It keeps us from growing and it makes us like the unsaved in theworld (Luke 12:30). In short, worry is unchristian; worry is a sin. How can wewitness to a lost world and encourage them to put faith in Jesus Christ if weourselves are doubting God and worrying? Is it not inconsistent to preach faithand yet not practice it? The late chaplain of the United States Senate, PeterMarshall, once prayed "that ulcers would not become the badge of ourfaith." Too often they are! How do we win over worry? The first step is to realize thatGod knows our needs, so we can trust Him to meet them. We are sheep in Hislittle flock, children in His family, and servants in His kingdom; and He willsee to it that our needs are fully met. It is His pleasure to give us Hiskingdom, so will He not give us everything that we need? Romans 8:31-32 remindsus of a great promise: “What then shall we say to these things? If God isfor us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but deliveredHim up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” But God's pleasures and our treasures must go together. Wemust look at earth from heaven's point of view and make sure that we put God'skingdom first in everything. The main question is, "Where is yourheart?" If our hearts are fixed on the transient things of earth, then wewill always worry. But if we are fixed on the eternal, then God's peace willguard our minds and hearts (Philippians 4:6-9). We must "hang loose"when it comes to this world's goods and be willing even to sell what we have inorder to help others (Acts 2:44-45; 4:34-35). It is not wrong to own things solong as things do not own us. Worry always leads to fear, and that is why Jesus, in verse32 added, “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father'sgood pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Worry is proof that our “faithis little” and that we need to believe God’s Old Testament promise in Proverbs3:5-6: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your ownunderstanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct yourpaths.” We are our Father’s “little flock” that He dearlyloves and takes pleasure in! You can trust Him to care for you today! God bless!