| Dr. J.R. Miller | Page 7 |
Another reason why we should not worry, the great Teacher draws from nature. God feeds the birds and clothes the flowers. “Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they?” What is the teaching? Is it that, since the birds neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, therefore we should put forth no exertion to provide for our own wants? No; the birds do the best they know. They live as they were made to live. But we are better than the birds. We are gifted for work. We are endowed with powers by which we are able, ordinarily, to provide for ourselves. Work is not part of the Adamic curse, as some people imagine. It was a divine ordinance for man from the beginning. It is not an untoiling life that Jesus enjoins in His allusion to the untoiling birds.
The teaching is that we are to fill our place as the birds fill theirs, be true to our divine vocation as they are to theirs, and then that God will provide for our wants as He does for theirs. In the prayer which Christ gave us we are taught to ask: “Give us this day our daily bread.” It is our bread only after we have earned it. We ask for it even then, because it is God’s bread, and we can get it with a blessing only out of His hand.
The argument which Jesus used in enforcing this part of His teaching is that we are much better than the birds. Birds have no soul, no mental faculties. They cannot think nor reason. They do not wear God’s image. They have no spiritual nature, no immortality.
“You are better than the birds,” said the Teacher. Man is the crown of God’s works. The great dramatist has this eulogy: “What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!” Surely a man is better than a bird. Surely then, too, the God who cares for a little soulless, unthinking, dying bird will care much more thoughtfully for a noble, thinking, divinely gifted, immortal man.
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