Matthew 6:34 Commentary and Bible Study

Faith, says Martin Lloyd Jones, means refusing to entertain anxious thoughts. Because God will provide for you if you put first his kingdom and his righteousness, you must not be anxious about tomorrow. All of the future lies in his hands and when Scripture forbids us being overconfident about our future plans and failing to commit them to the Lord, it at the same time teaches us that God will supply all our future needs. If we are even told not to be anxious about one day ahead, much less should we to be anxious about weeks, months and years ahead. So much can change; so little is under our control. How great a peace the one who trusts in God can have! That peace is completely out of reach of those who do not know the Lord and are outside of his kingdom, who cannot call him their heavenly Father. But the believer resigns all the complexity and coming together of events into the Lord’s care. He alone can orchestrate the affairs of life in such a way that hostile actions ultimately work for our good, shortages turn out to be for our advantage, troubles and trials work for our sanctification, and all things prepare us for our eternal home. ‘Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.’ Christ personifies anxiety and treats the anxiety that belongs to tomorrow as if it was a real entity struggling to exert itself. In many ways that it just what it is, for worry seems to take on a life of its own. Do not be anxious, he says, for what you fear may never come, and if it does come you will face it with the Lord’s help which is sufficient for every trial. This instruction is good for facing enemies and bearing their attacks, for undertaking great exploits and coping with extreme difficulties, for receiving bad news and facing disappointment, for dealing with debt, for suffering illness, for deathbeds, and for martyrs. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ This is a powerful way of saying, abandon all concern about the future; when it comes you will be able to face it with God’s help. Yes, you may be required to do some very difficult things, and make some hard decisions, but you are not alone. You have the infinite power of God on your side and he has told you to ask him for wisdom and promised to give it to those who ask in faith. The time of action, the time that is in your power, is today. The night marks a natural God-given limit on how far ahead you should allow your concerns to roam. Let each day be enough. Actually, you cannot even master a single day, hour, or minute, for you need God’s help in everything. Christ tells us to limit our concerns to what lies within our power at the present time. Even then we must lean on the Lord for all our strength. This approach to life is exemplified so perfectly by the Lord Jesus Christ. Who has ever faced troubles like those which he faced? Who has ever had a clearer view of what lay ahead? This knowledge would have crushed anyone else, and reduced them to despair or paralysis of spirit. But the Lord followed his own instruction and although he knew the future and says to his disciples, ‘I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!’ (Luke 12:49-50). He knew exactly what lay ahead, but he trusted his Father to strengthen him when the time came and did not allow anxiety to consume him. Although in the garden of Gethsemane, he struggled with the horror and darkness of the cross, anticipating what it would be to make an atonement for human sin, that experience was about his willingness to go through with the plan of God, not about anxiety for the future.