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In ancient Rome, religion was not a matter of devotion but precision. The gods did not care if you loved them. What they demanded was strict adherence to ritual formulas. For example, Cicero recorded that religious sacrifices sometimes had to be repeated due to minor ritual errors. A priest may have mumbled a word, an unexpected noise came from the crowd, a sacred object was misplaced, or an animal resisted being led to the altar. Anything could be a bad omen and a reason for the gods to reject an offering or deny a request.

Livy, the historian who lived at the same time as Jesus, said the Roman Senate once ordered gladiatorial games and sacrifices to be repeated because procedural errors had been made. They were worried that even a tiny mistake would anger the gods and leave the empire without divine favor. In this way, most ancient religions viewed prayer like magical incantations. The right words, spoken in the right place, at the right time, in the right order, and with the right accessories would manipulate the deity to act on your behalf.

Jesus presents a completely different vision of prayer in the Sermon on the Mount because he knows the true God cannot be controlled by anything or anyone. Rather than the manipulation of magic, Jesus compares prayer to the relationship between a father and child. What father would give his child a stone when he asks for bread, Jesus asks, or a serpent when they ask for a fish? The love of even the very best father is imperfect, but they still know how to give good gifts to their children. Our heavenly Father’s love is without limit or shadow, Jesus said, so how much more will he give good things to us when we ask him?

In this teaching, Jesus rejects two very common ideas held by most religious people. First, he is rejecting the popular vision of a capricious, malevolent god. Our Father in the heavens does not begrudgingly bless his people. Instead, he wants to bless us. In fact, it gives him joy (see Luke 12:32). This is because we are not slaves in God’s household hoping he will take notice of us and offer a scrap from his table. We are daughters and sons who are invited to his table to share in the abundance of his home.

Second, Jesus is rejecting the common belief that blessings must be manipulated or coerced from God through precise rituals or demonstrations of piety. These qualities of ancient Roman paganism are still very common among Christians today. Very often, religious people assume God’s goodness will only be available to them if they attend church more regularly, give more sacrificially, or pray more earnestly. Rather than seeing God as a loving Father, they engage him like an erratic child who must be bribed into obedience. Not only does this view violate the clear evidence of God’s kindness, but it also sinfully assumes we possess the power to manipulate him like a puppet on a string.

Instead, a correct vision of God and ourselves should lead to a completely different way of engagement. That is why Jesus invites us to simply ask him for what we need. Unlike other religious traditions, Jesus bestows upon us the dignity of children rather than the humiliation of slaves or the arrogance of magicians.

Daily Scripture

Matthew 7:1–5

2 Chronicles 1:7–12

Weekly Prayer

From Thomas à Kempis (1380 - 1471)

How long can we love life, when it holds so much bitterness and brings so much sorrow? Indeed, how can we call the daily struggle true life, when it brings physical pain and spiritual sadness in equal measure? Yet people cling to sinful activities as a source of comfort. They grasp desperately at the passing pleasures and vanities of the world. They do not readily abandon the desires of the body and the lusts of the eye.

Lord, strengthen me with heavenly courage, that I may fight against pleasures and vanities that harm the soul. I do not expect or ask that trials and sorrows should cease. I ask only that, in your strength, I resist the temptation to seek consolation in sin. For I know that only by clinging to the gospel of righteousness, and by grasping at your eternal grace, can I ever experience true and lasting joy.

Amen.

0:00 - Theme Song

0:58 - Was Daniel a Hypocrite?

6:57 - What’s the Lion’s Den Story’s Point?

11:40 - Sponsor - Belonging by Design - Learn how to show up for special-needs families at your church. Go to https://www.accessible.faith/holypost to claim two free lessons and if you’re ready to go all in, promo code HOLYPOST gets you $200 off!

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13:50 - Modern “Praying for Others to See”

18:30 - Jesus and Praying in Public

23:56 - Praying for God, Not People

27:53 - End Credits

In his 1976 book Beyond Culture, anthropologist Edward T. Hall explored why people in some cultures communicate very directly, while others use more indirect messaging. For example, in my office, it would be normal for someone to say, “This podcast title doesn’t work. Let’s try something else.” In response, the team would simply brainstorm more options. That’s because America is generally a direct communication culture. We value efficiency and results, so we tend to say exactly what we mean to avoid any confusion that may waste time and resources.

By contrast, most indirect communication cultures value stable relationship networks and social honor more than efficiency. Therefore, even when a matter is urgent, it may be communicated obliquely to avoid shaming the recipient. In that setting, an editor who is very dissatisfied with a podcast title might say, “I wonder if we are done with this title?” Although never explicit, the team would get the message: He hates the title; let’s start over.

Unless we’ve traveled extensively, or had meaningful cross-cultural relationships, most of us are unaware of our own communication style. We can just assume everyone is operating under the same set of assumptions, which causes us to completely misinterpret what’s being said. For example, researchers have noted that Americans working in Asia complain that people there “never say what they mean,” while Asians often view Americans as “rude” or “pushy.” These judgments result from misinterpreting direct and indirect communication.

Learning about Hall’s work on cultural communication styles changed my reading of the Sermon on the Mount. Ancient Judea, unlike modern America, was an honor-based culture. Recognizing this dynamic is critical to understanding many gospel stories and parables. Very often, honor-based cultures also employ indirect communication styles, particularly when a lower-status person communicates with a higher-status person. In other words, directly confronting someone in authority was extremely rare, as was making a blunt request. Doing so risked shaming the person in the presence of others if the plea was not granted immediately.

Given this cultural dynamic, imagine the surprise of Jesus’ listeners when he said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” He was calling his disciples to employ an utterly counter-cultural, direct communication style toward the highest authority imaginable—God. But why?

Remember, Hall said indirect communication is employed in cultures where protecting honor and harmony is paramount. The great risk of direct communication is causing offense or shaming the other person. By inviting us to make our requests boldly and directly to our heavenly Father, Jesus was revealing that God’s honor is not delicate and needs no guarding—especially from mere humans. Likewise, his love for us is never in doubt and therefore does not require manipulation or coddling. In other words, our relationship with our Father in the heavens is not defined by fear or fragility. God’s self-sustaining security welcomes our bold sincerity.

If this is true, then why don’t we just ask him for what we seek with honesty and transparency? Why do we feel the need to hedge our prayers with platitudes, Christian cliches, and passive appeals? Such prayers may cause others to view us as humble or devout, but they also reveal that we carry a distorted vision of God. In other words, as our vision of our heavenly Father becomes clearer, so should our communication with him.

Daily Scripture

Matthew 7:1–5

James 4:2–3

Weekly Prayer

From Thomas à Kempis (1380 - 1471)

How long can we love life, when it holds so much bitterness and brings so much sorrow? Indeed, how can we call the daily struggle true life, when it brings physical pain and spiritual sadness in equal measure? Yet people cling to sinful activities as a source of comfort. They grasp desperately at the passing pleasures and vanities of the world. They do not readily abandon the desires of the body and the lusts of the eye.

Lord, strengthen me with heavenly courage, that I may fight against pleasures and vanities that harm the soul. I do not expect or ask that trials and sorrows should cease. I ask only that, in your strength, I resist the temptation to seek consolation in sin. For I know that only by clinging to the gospel of righteousness, and by grasping at your eternal grace, can I ever experience true and lasting joy.

Amen.

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My friend David French has written about this tendency as it relates to political polarization. When facing a choice between two flawed candidates, many people choose to hold their noses and vote for the person they consider less odious. At this early stage, we can recognize the flaws—the planks in the eye—of our candidate, party, or group. But over time, as we continue to identify with the team, it becomes increasingly difficult to acknowledge these shortcomings. French describes it this way: “People can stomach voting for the lesser of two evils, but few people can stomach being a part of a movement that’s simply ‘less evil.’ People want to be a part of something good, not merely something that’s less bad.”

This deep desire to see ourselves and our group as truly good, rather than merely less evil, eventually leads us to minimize our team’s sins, then to excuse them, and finally to deny their existence altogether. We stop holding our noses because we’ve convinced ourselves that the foul odor really isn’t foul at all; it’s actually a bouquet of flowers. To maintain this illusion of self-righteousness, humility and self-awareness aren’t just abandoned but actively discouraged and criticized within the group. At the same time, the tiniest splinter in our opponents’ eyes is magnified into a sequoia. In other words, we lose all objectivity and any ability to perceive the truth.

When self-righteousness fully eclipses self-awareness, and we are completely convinced of our team’s goodness, we can justify the most heinous evils. This is precisely what we see in those who opposed and killed Jesus. For example, the Sanhedrin could have arrested Jesus while he taught openly at the temple each day. Instead, they snatched him in the middle of the night outside the city to avoid public outcry. Then they held a trial under the cover of darkness so no one could come to Jesus’ defense. Finally, the Sanhedrin arranged for false witnesses to testify against Jesus to fabricate a reason to execute him. They blatantly broke God’s law, all the while they were attempting to find just one speck of sin in Jesus’ eye. They were so blinded by their self-righteousness that they could no longer discern right from wrong, godliness from wickedness.

Their example serves as a warning to all of us who cling to a righteous religious identity while judging the less devout around us. We may become so convinced of our group’s goodness that we fail to see our true ungodliness. Once we stop affirming and cultivating self-awareness and humility, we stop recognizing the truth about ourselves. We become convinced that we could never belong to team evil, which is precisely how evil spreads.

Daily Scripture

Matthew 7:1–5

Mark 14:55–65

Weekly Prayer

From Thomas à Kempis (1380 - 1471)

How long can we love life, when it holds so much bitterness and brings so much sorrow? Indeed, how can we call the daily struggle true life, when it brings physical pain and spiritual sadness in equal measure? Yet people cling to sinful activities as a source of comfort. They grasp desperately at the passing pleasures and vanities of the world. They do not readily abandon the desires of the body and the lusts of the eye.

Lord, strengthen me with heavenly courage, that I may fight against pleasures and vanities that harm the soul. I do not expect or ask that trials and sorrows should cease. I ask only that, in your strength, I resist the temptation to seek consolation in sin. For I know that only by clinging to the gospel of righteousness, and by grasping at your eternal grace, can I ever experience true and lasting joy.

Amen.

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Yesterday, we saw that the word “judgment” can be used in two ways. It may either mean to discern or to condemn. Discernment is an essential part of wisdom, and something Jesus expects his followers to do. The kind of judgment Jesus forbids, however, is the sort that condemns another person or group. It diminishes their inherent worth as those made in God’s image. Unfortunately, religious people regularly fall into the trap of believing that discernment necessitates condemnation. Or, said another way, that a person’s value directly correlates to their righteousness.

We may discern that a person or group is wrong about a belief or behavior, but too often this becomes an excuse to value them less. At that moment we have entered into the kind of judgment Jesus forbids. Sometimes we are drawn into this condemning posture of ungodly exclusion because it magnifies our own righteousness. The more forcefully we condemn those people, the more we simultaneously elevate the superiority of our people.

Sadly, this sort of rhetoric fills our culture and has become acceptable in the public square. A recent example was posted on the official White House webpage. The site is black with a glowing green font declaring “They Walk Among Us.” It is designed to look like a sci-fi website with space imagery and X-Files-like intrigue. It talks about a government cover-up, an alien invasion, and the threat to our families, communities, and nation. It features an “alien encounters” ticker and an “arrest map.” It takes some time before visitors to the site realize the White House is equating immigrants to extraterrestrials; to non-human invaders.

I generally avoid politics in this devotional and certainly anything partisan, but sometimes, as Karl Barth said, we must read the Bible and the newspaper together. Fixing America’s broken immigration system requires wisdom and discernment. No doubt that will lead faithful Christians to advocate for different solutions, and we should have a vigorous debate about what policies are best. What is absolutely unacceptable for Christians, however, is the dehumanization of anyone made in God’s image—even someone who has broken the law.

When the government declares a group of people to be sub-human, it is saying that they are not subject to the same rights or dignity as the rest of us. They should not matter to us, because they do not matter to God. In other words, condemning and dehumanizing rhetoric is not only a way of diminishing the value of those we disagree with, but it is also a way of elevating our own sense of superiority. This is why Jesus is so adamant that those who belong to the kingdom of the heavens not engage in condemning judgment. It is the antithesis of love. Author and pastor Greg Boyd puts it this way: “You can’t love and judge at the same time,” because “It’s impossible to ascribe unsurpassable worth to others when you’re using others to ascribe worth to yourself.”

Daily Scripture

Matthew 7:1–5

1 John 4:7-21

Weekly Prayer

From Ashton Oxenden (1808–1892)

God, I want your guidance and direction in all I do. Let your wisdom counsel me, your hand lead me, and your arm support me. I put myself into your hands. Breathe into my soul holy and heavenly desires. Conform me to your own image. Make me like my Savior. Enable me in some measure to live here on earth as he lived, and to act in all things as he would have acted.

Amen.

I’ve been thinking about space lately. I’m editing a book by an astronomer, which has taught me a lot about the subject. Some of the concepts are baffling and I find myself writing questions like this in the margins: “Can you explain this term without using big science words? Of course, I know what it means but there are a lot of simpletons out there.” In addition to my crash course in astronomy, the news has been filled with stories about the government’s recent release of the U.F.O. files (or “U.A.P.s” for your fancy pants people). 

Dwelling on space has some real benefits. I’ve gained about 10 pounds this year. It looks bad in the mirror. But from outer space? I bet you wouldn’t even notice. I heard an interview with the Astrophysicist Michelle Thaller recently. She gives this illustration to give people a sense of the cosmic scale. If the sun were reduced to the size of the dot in a lowercase letter “i” on a page of text, the Milky Way galaxy would be about the size of the earth in comparison. (Insert mind-blown emoji here.) Kind of puts things in perspective, doesn’t it? It humbles us (or it should). But as Christians the scale of the universe also has an elevating effect, too. When I look up at the vast beauty of the night sky, it’s wild to think that the Creator of it all loves me. It always fills me with awe and makes me say with the Psalmist, “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”

A quick recap of what you might have missed this week

Speaking of space, The New York Times ran a piece about the release of U.F.O files causing consternation among Christians. “Some worry that it undercuts the Bible’s account of the Earth and humanity as the centerpiece of God’s plan for the universe,” the article says. The article also reports that many Christians have reached for a different explanation to account for the aerial phenomena. As Vice President JD Vance said on a podcast recently, “I don’t think they’re aliens, I think they’re demons.” I don’t know what to think but I’ll tell you this. If little green men show up at my house in the middle of the night, I’m casting them out.

Pope Leo’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, warns against the dangers of AI. It opens with a bold statement: “Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.” Scholar Nadya Williams analyzes this urgent message, emphasizing the Pope’s warning that over-reliance on AI threatens human relationships and erodes our identity as beings made in God’s images. Williams underscores a central theme from the text: “We must remember that humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them.”

What if the Pope’s magisterial encyclical warning against AI was actually (partially) written by AI? That’s one person’s contention. He used stylometric evidence and AI detection software to conclude that a large portion of the encyclical is the work of a Large Language Model. I have neither the interest nor expertise to parse his claims, but if he’s right, irony is indeed dead. Read: “Claude, Author of the Humanitas.”

The latest theological dustup on the world wide web

Christianity Today published an article posing the question, “Can Christians Smoke Weed?” Author Daniel Darling concluded that recreational use of marijuana is “out of step with obedience to Christ.” The piece really lit up the Internet, receiving high praise from some and blazing condemnation from others. It’s a cloudy issue. I wouldn’t call it a sin but as joint heirs with Christ, we do have a higher calling.

Nerdy, intriguing news for the happily over-informed

According to a new study, many AI chatbots have a pro-Catholic bias. The models showed the most positive reaction towards Catholicism (with an “approval” rating of about (61%) ). The lowest ratings? Jehovah’s Witnesses (3%). I guess that’s what you get for not celebrating Christmas.

I recently brought my son to the theater to see a new documentary, The Story of Everything. It’s a documentary exploring the origins of the universe and the existence of God. Somehow, I thought it would be a light and entertaining film. It was not. It was fairly technical with a lineup of scientists opining on subjects that would stretch any teen’s attention span. It was also excellent, a Christian-backed but evenhanded exploration of our origins.

This isn’t a new story but it’s a powerful one. I saw it when it made the rounds on social media a couple years ago. It’s a video of a man named John, who collects bottles on the streets of New York City. He doesn’t have much but after listening to his story, you just might think he’s the richest man in the world.

• On the Holy Post, the team talks about Colbert and the challenges of public faith.
  

• On the SkyePod, David French talks to Skye about gerrymandering and its impact on voting rights.
  

• On the Curiously, Kaitlyn podcast, Kaitlyn addresses a central question to Christian faith: “How did God inspire the Bible?”

Fresh updates across the religious landscape

• Hot-Button Issues Still Dominate Political Talk from Pulpit

• Christian Groups Could Lose Property Under India’s New Bill

• Samaritan’s Purse to Open Ebola Field hospital in Congo

Paul wasn’t just writing about heaven, he was writing about your life right now. In Paul for the World, acclaimed New Testament scholar Nijay K. Gupta offers a compelling vision of Pauline theology rooted in everyday Christian living. Accessible and hopeful, this book calls Christians to move beyond escapist spirituality and embrace Paul’s life-affirming theology.

Many parts of the Sermon on the Mount have entered our cultural lexicon. Sometimes phrases like “the meek shall inherit the earth,” “turn the other cheek,” and “a city on a hill” are quoted by people who have no clue of their origin in Jesus’ sermon. Perhaps the verse most cited by non-Christians is Matthew 7:1, “Do not judge.” In this case, however, many people do know Jesus said it and will quote the command back to his followers who often seem the least interested in obeying it.

The straightforward prohibition against judgment is a favorite because it fits the spirit of our age that sees all choices as valid and all values as equally noble. To those with only a soundbyte knowledge of Scripture, taking Matthew 7:1 out of context makes Jesus seem like a postmodern relativist with no interest in the behavior of others. Of course, anyone who has listened to his sermon up to this point would know that is lunacy. After all, in the previous two chapters Jesus had a lot to say about greed, lust, anger, divorce, hypocrisy, generosity, and non-violence. So, how can the command to not judge sit alongside Jesus’ many moral and ethical commands?

The popularity of this verse stems from a misunderstanding of what it means to judge. F.F. Bruce, a New Testament scholar, explains the problem this way. “Judgment is an ambiguous word, in Greek as in English: it may mean exercising a proper discernment, or it may mean sitting in judgment on people (or even condemning them).” Therefore, we must be clear about what kind of judgment Jesus forbids if we are to properly understand and apply this part of the sermon.

On the one hand, to judge can mean to discern or differentiate between things, as in “I judged the red car to be in better condition than the blue one.” If Jesus meant for us to avoid acts of discernment, it would render all of his teachings, not to mention all of Scripture, meaningless. Let’s remember that in the same sermon where he says, “do not judge,” he also calls his followers to judge between right and wrong and good and evil (see Matthew 7:15–20).

The second meaning of judge is to sit in a place of superiority to condemn, or to declare another person is worthless. This is the sort of judgment Jesus warns us against. Those who belong to the kingdom of the heavens are to see other people from God’s point of view. That means we are to recognize them as valuable objects of God’s love, never beyond the reach of his care or redemption. So, when Jesus says, “Do not judge,” he is forbidding us from dehumanizing condemnation. It is never our role to pass final judgment upon another person, or declare them to be irretrievably guilty and without any value.

What do these two kinds of judgment look like in practice? Our world is a very broken place, and sometimes we must identify injustice, greed, violence, and evils of many kinds, as well as the people and systems that perpetrate them. That requires the discerning sort of judgment. But we must not allow this to descend further into the judgment that condemns. That means seeing in those who practice evil a reflection of ourselves, and believing that, as someone made in God’s image, they carry inherent worth.

Daily Scripture

Matthew 7:1–5

1 Corinthians 4:1-5

Weekly Prayer

From Ashton Oxenden (1808–1892)

God, I want your guidance and direction in all I do. Let your wisdom counsel me, your hand lead me, and your arm support me. I put myself into your hands. Breathe into my soul holy and heavenly desires. Conform me to your own image. Make me like my Savior. Enable me in some measure to live here on earth as he lived, and to act in all things as he would have acted.

Amen.

In the clip, Kaitlyn and Mike discuss why Scripture never imagines faith as a solo project, and how imperfect churches, even ones full of coffee mugs, simple sermons, and frustrating preferences, can still become places where God forms us.

0:00 - Theme Song

0:33 - Malcolm and Sharon

2:23 - Most Mundane Accomplishments

7:20 - Pope Leo’s A.I. Encyclical

24:00 - Sponsor - Access Forge - Go to https://www.accessible.faith/ to unlock the first two Belonging by Design lessons and use promo code HOLYPOST to get $200 off the full program

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26:19 - Unhappy America

31:04 - America and Momento Mori

41:55 - Boredom and the Meaning of Life

54:22 - End Credits

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shamrocks, leprechauns, and pints of Guinness, few remember the remarkable story of Saint Patrick, but for me he exemplifies Jesus’ message in the Sermon on the Mount.

Patrick was not Irish. He was born in Britain but kidnapped when he was 16, sold as a slave, and shipped across the sea to Ireland. While a shepherd in a foreign land, he learned to commune deeply with Christ and trust him for his needs. His faith grew so strong that years later, after escaping from Ireland, he chose to return to bring the liberating message of Christ to the people who had enslaved him.

His unwavering faith and lack of fear make Patrick a vivid example of the life without anxiety that Jesus spoke about in the Sermon on the Mount. Rather than worrying about his life, Patrick recognized the presence of his Lord everywhere he went. This prayer, known as The Breastplate of Saint Patrick, captures his vision of God’s ever-present provision. Historians say the prayer was probably not written by Patrick but composed centuries later. Still, it captures the faith and courage of the saint, and I hope it inspires you to release your fears today.

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

Daily Scripture

Matthew 6:25–34

Luke 12:32–34

Weekly Prayer

From Ashton Oxenden (1808–1892)

God, I want your guidance and direction in all I do. Let your wisdom counsel me, your hand lead me, and your arm support me. I put myself into your hands. Breathe into my soul holy and heavenly desires. Conform me to your own image. Make me like my Savior. Enable me in some measure to live here on earth as he lived, and to act in all things as he would have acted.

Amen.

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0:00 - Theme Song

1:33 - Can You Do the Lord’s Supper Alone/

11:21 - Living in Light of the Resurrection?

17:22 - Importance of Being “Theologically-Trained”

25:02 - Sponsor - Belonging by Design - Learn how to show up for special-needs families at your church. Go to https://www.accessible.faith/holypost to claim two free lessons and use promo code HOLYPOST gets you $200 off!

26:20 - When Do You Leave a Church?

41:23 - End Credits

The unintended consequence of this, however, is that we jump to the topic we are interested in and consume those verses in isolation from what has preceded it. This leads us to see the Sermon on the Mount as a collection of disconnected teachings of Jesus that the gospel writer just happened to include together. We assume it’s a coincidence that Jesus’ instructions about worry happen to follow his words about greed, but they could have just as easily been in the opposite order or nowhere near one another.

In truth, the entire sermon is a unified, cohesive argument, with each section building upon the previous one. Therefore, to fully grasp what Jesus says about worry in Matthew 6:25-34, we must see how it connects to his message about greed and generosity in the preceding verses, 6:19-24. When we read them together, we will begin to recognize the link between worry and greed.

Both are rooted in how we perceive the world and the God who governs it. If we believe the world is a dangerous place in which God cannot be trusted, it makes perfect sense to be afraid and hoard our resources. However, if we see the world as Jesus does, as a God-with-us creation in which our heavenly Father is seeking our well-being and where we are perfectly safe in his hands, then worry and greed aren’t just unnecessary; they are illogical. In other words, these topics are linked together in Jesus’ sermon because they have the same solution. Both greed and worry are overcome with a proper vision of God’s love for us.

Thomas Aquinas, the great theologian of the Middle Ages, said fear causes a contraction of the soul. He compared its effect on a person to a city under siege. When an army attacked a city, the inhabitants in the countryside would gather their resources and barricade themselves behind the city’s walls. From this contracted, inward-focused position, they would hunker down and hope their food and water would outlast the attacking army’s will to fight.

Similarly, when we perceive the world as threatening, we contract; we pull our resources inward in a posture of protection and self-preservation and worry. We can only think about ourselves, our needs, and our survival. From this defensive position, we cannot love because we cannot give. This is exactly what Jesus wants to set us free from. When we come to see that our heavenly Father cares for all he has made, from blades of grass to birds in the air, and that he will take care of us as well, we can be released from our captivity to self-centeredness, which manifests as both worry and greed, and begin instead to see and meet the needs of others. As Henri Nouwen said, “Fear engenders fear, it never gives birth to love.”

Daily Scripture

Matthew 6:25–34

Ephesians 4:28

Weekly Prayer

From Ashton Oxenden (1808–1892)

God, I want your guidance and direction in all I do. Let your wisdom counsel me, your hand lead me, and your arm support me. I put myself into your hands. Breathe into my soul holy and heavenly desires. Conform me to your own image. Make me like my Savior. Enable me in some measure to live here on earth as he lived, and to act in all things as he would have acted.

Amen.

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In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus flatly denies the view that life is the pursuit of material desires. He reminds us that life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing, despite what the 5,000 daily advertisements would like us to believe. Jesus’ call to take our focus off of material needs and desires is intended to alleviate our anxiety. When we see the world from God’s perspective, as a place under his providential care and provision, we can release our fears. When we see the world from the perspective of Madison Ave., not only will our fears remain, they will multiply.

Back in 1897, at the dawn of the modern advertising industry, one newspaper reader said that in the past we “skipped ads unless some want compelled us to read, while now we read to find out what we really want.” Most of the 5,000 ads we see every day are not designed to remind us of our needs, but to manufacture new ones. Imagine if you were reminded 5,000 times a day of God’s presence, love, and promise to care for you. How would that affect your level of anxiety?

If you are struggling with fear or the stress of trying to acquire more, consider removing some of the ads you encounter each day. What media can you turn off? What places might you avoid? Replace them with prayer, reading Scripture, or time with things that lift your imagination to God.

Daily Scripture

Matthew 6:25–34

Philippians 4:8–9

Weekly Prayer

From Ashton Oxenden (1808–1892)

God, I want your guidance and direction in all I do. Let your wisdom counsel me, your hand lead me, and your arm support me. I put myself into your hands. Breathe into my soul holy and heavenly desires. Conform me to your own image. Make me like my Savior. Enable me in some measure to live here on earth as he lived, and to act in all things as he would have acted.

Amen.