Matthew 6:30, commentary and pictures

God clothes plant life that is brief and delicate, quickly withering and cut down and perishing within a day before it is burned for fuel. He taught this to call His hearers away from anxious thought about what to eat and drink and wear, since life is more than food and the body more than clothing, the Father knows these needs, and those who seek first His kingdom and righteousness will have all these things added. If He so clothes the grass He will much more clothe and provide for His people, because they are formed in His image, gifted with higher powers, and of far greater value than birds and flowers. Worry and distrust about necessities are therefore rebuked as little faith, while trusting the caring Father, doing what can be done and leaving the rest to Him, brings rest from undue anxiety. The clothing He gives also points inward and upward to the meekness and righteousness of Christ and beauty of character, which unfolds in a yielded life as His life unfolds in a lily by rain and sunshine, without artificial striving or display.

Words and Immediate Context

The grass of the field that exists today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven is plant life that is brief, delicate and short-lived, quickly withering, cut down and perishing in a day. After its short life it is burned as fuel. Its beauty while it lasts is delicate, varied and perishable.

The saying was spoken by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, given especially to His disciples while the gathered multitude also heard. It belongs to His teaching about the holy law and the holy standard of character. That teaching shows the law must be present in the heart and not merely observed outwardly, for the state of the heart regulates the life and character. It is the pure gospel of the Mount concerning laying up treasure in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and thieves do not steal, because where treasure is the heart will be also, and concerning refusing service to mammon. It opposed self-righteous doctrine and corrected a stern, compassionless picture of God.

Its immediate argument is that life is more than food and the body more than clothing. The heavenly Father knows His children need food, drink and clothing, for the God who gave life knows the need of food to sustain it and the God who created the body knows the need of clothing, and He who bestowed the greater gift will bestow what is needed to make it complete. They are therefore to take no anxious thought saying what they shall eat or drink or wear. Instead with singleness of eye they are to refuse laying up corruptible treasure on earth, refuse to serve mammon, and seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, trusting all these things shall be added unto them.

He illustrated it by pointing to the hillsides and fields bright with flowers in the dewy freshness of the morning, calling hearers to consider how the lilies grow. He placed lilies, and also roses and pinks, in the hands of children and youth. His own youthful face was aglow with His Father's light as He taught. The flowers grow in natural simplicity and loveliness beyond Solomon in all his glory and beyond the robes of kings, without toil or spinning.

God's Greater Care for People

If God clothes even the grass of the field though it is short-lived, He will much more clothe His people and supply clothing and other needed blessings, for His care for people is greater than His care for grass and flowers. The verse assures worried and sorrowful people that they can trust the heavenly Father who knows what they need, rather than worrying with little faith, and it calls them to rely on Him for suitable, comfortable, neat and warm clothing without extravagance. They can trust His care without first seeing how everything will turn out, because He is their caring Father, and this trust holds even in days of peril and trial. The lily and grass show that God's care rather than human effort is the source of what He provides, and the lesson drawn from the beauty of nature warns against little faith.

The reason lies in the place human beings hold in creation, for they are formed in God's image and likeness, gifted with higher and nobler powers than lower creation, of greater consequence and value than birds and flowers, His purchased heritage and His children. Blessing and care are proportionate to the place each thing holds in creation, so His estimate of and love for beings made in His image is immeasurably greater than His care for flowers that wither in a day. The beauty He gives short-lived plants, outshining Solomon in all his glory, is meant to enlarge views of His goodness and to prove how much more He will clothe and care for people.

He keeps every human being continually in His mind and present before Him, knowing the whole history and even the number of the hairs on the head, so that people are not forgotten. He watches each person in every circumstance and notices every tear and smile, and trusting this care frees from undue anxiety and brings rest of soul. The hand that upholds the world upholds and strengthens His weakest child, and the great Master Artist who gives the lily its delicate tints cares for the little sparrow so that not one falls without His notice. With a page in the volume of providence recording the events of each life history, His wonderful love and care reach even to the smallest details of life and assure those who choose His service that He will provide the blessings they need for this life.

Even though men and women have sinned grievously they are not forsaken or forgotten, and His care extends even to the weakest and most sinful. He who rules in heaven will not pass by those formed in His own image and purchased with His own blood, nor ignore their suffering cries. He has not lost sight of the first cause or the last effect of evils such as drunkenness, but marks all the wickedness that keeps up misery and crime and charges it to those whose influence opens the door of temptation to another soul, requiring an account from those who lay a snare, rob and degrade, live in luxury by that degradation, and help speed others to ruin.

He is constantly working to make this provision good, just as He constantly works to answer the prayer for daily bread, with an invisible power constantly at work as man's servant to feed and clothe him. The same power that set the starry worlds on high gives life to every blade and blossom, so that every wayside blossom owes its being to one pulse of life from God's great heart thrilling through all created things, and no human touch can impart life to even one flower or blade though human skill may copy graceful forms and delicate hues. Through soil, air, dew, rain and sunshine He sustains vegetation, and many agencies are employed to make seed that seems thrown away into a living plant, supplying in due proportion all that is required to perfect the harvest. The God who gave life knows the need of food to sustain it and the God who created the body knows the need of raiment, so He who bestowed the greater gift will bestow what is needed to make it complete, the green grass and flowers testifying to His tender fatherly care and desire to make His children happy, with nothing too small for His attention and His care for eternal interests greater still.

Trust Over Anxious Unbelief

Anxious thought, perplexity, doubt, distrust and worry about what to eat, what to drink, what to wear and how necessities will be met are rebuked by the words O ye of little faith as signs of a faithless heart. The grass of the field is delicate and short-lived, quickly withering and then used as fuel, yet the divine artist clothes it with varied colors and beauty, which proves that people made in His image can trust Him to provide clothing and inward adornment in the meekness and righteousness of Christ. Worry over necessities instead of trusting the heavenly Father who knows what is needed is little faith, and the question calls for reliance on His tender, personal care rather than laying up treasure on earth.

Trust means waiting upon the caring heavenly Father, serving faithfully, doing what can be done and leaving what cannot be done to Him, without first seeing how everything will turn out. Such trust frees from undue anxiety and brings rest of soul, for He sustains all creation, watches each person in every circumstance, and notices every tear and smile. It extends from everyday food and clothing to the redemption of the soul and to days of peril and trial, when the poor in toil and deprivation and fear of want and the rich in fear of loss and anxious cares are to cast the burden of life's cares upon Christ for help and comfort. Forgetting this lesson leaves the burden uncarried by Christ, so that cares that should drive to the Saviour for help and comfort instead separate from Him, while having faith rather than sight means fighting the good fight of faith, trusting continually with thanksgiving and praise, talking faith, working in faith, looking to Jesus to grow in grace and knowledge, laying hold of God's hand in confidence and following without fretting while He strengthens and blesses those who put trust in Him.

Distrust is ingratitude and unbelief that dishonors God, robs Him of the honor due His holy name, and casts reflection upon Him. Though gifted with higher and nobler powers than lower creation, man has disobeyed his Creator, departed from His plan, lowered himself to acts that dishonor his Maker, and that unbelief leads to evil works, wrong principles, greed, selfishness, worldliness and sharp practices. This appears when professed disciples give first consideration to houses, lands, property and business interests and seek after all these things as the Gentiles seek. God has made His will clearly known and gives evidence after evidence of His desire that none perish but that all by believing and obeying His word shall have eternal life, calling human beings to reveal the pure, unselfish love and unquestioning faith Christ manifested in clothing His divinity with humanity to become one with humanity, to live pure, holy lives to become one with Him and thus one with God, to become partakers of the divine nature and escape corruption through lust, and to cast all heavy burdens and cares upon Him because without His help they cannot be carried aright.

Such a self-serving course brings God's rebuke and stern judgments openly displayed, as upon the institutions and believers in Battle Creek, where the two largest institutions fell for unrighteousness. Those who continue to act as the Gentiles act will be punished as the Gentiles with greater severity because of greater light unless there is thorough conversion and repentance, and determined obstinacy and defiance after correction brings continued divine displeasure.

The promise holds in concrete trials of loyalty and sacrifice, for doubting God's care to provide is little faith even when obedience costs work and wages. When a person keeps the seventh day and loses employment rather than break the fourth commandment, fear about how the family will live and meet debt and want is unbelief in the care of the heavenly Father, strengthened by Satan, and God rebukes that fear as little faith while honoring loyalty by opening a better way and supplying the need for the honor of His name, as when Brother Sharp after losing his job for keeping the Sabbath found work with an employer who valued his honesty and allowed him to keep the Sabbath. The same assurance belongs to those pressed by poverty, to those who give up possessions and use entrusted substance to advance God's work even in famine as He cared for Elijah, to those called to advance when the time has fully come instead of holding back from worry about money and material provision, and to those sent out as workers without money in hand, for their bread and water will be sure and clinging to earthly treasure for fear of coming to want shows little faith that can cost heavenly treasure and everlasting life.

Christ's Teaching Through Nature

Jesus as Creator spoke of what His own hands had made, giving nature a new meaning as revelation of divine truth, illustrating the unknown by the known and sacred truth by familiar earthly things. He drew His illustrations from facts of life and experience familiar to His hearers, from birds and flowers and the grass of the field and the lily, to reach the heart and the inner temple of the soul, so that seeing these things afterward would recall the teaching. The fresh and beautiful lily binds the common duties of life with the most precious treasures of divine truth and represents the regenerating power of grace in a figure all can comprehend, making truth and life part of daily appointments. Placing the flower in the hands of children and youth, He taught from its simple beauty, which surpasses Solomon's glory without toil, the ground for assurance of God's provision, showing God's care to clothe people much more than He clothes the short-lived grass.

His language was adapted to the opening intellect of child-life, bringing hearers into contact with nature so they may listen to the voice that speaks in all created things. He reached minds by the pathway of familiar associations, hallowed recollections, tender sympathies, life experience and household ties, identifying Himself with the interests of His hearers and arousing their minds while breaking up their accustomed train of thought as little as possible. While weaving a new and transforming economy of truth into their experience in plain, direct simplicity with authority and vital force, He made every point clear and distinct, meeting people where they are to carry them to a higher plane of thought and life. As hearts become tender and minds receptive He helps them interpret the spiritual teaching of the scenes their eyes rest upon, preparing hearts to receive rays of light from the Light of the world, for all true knowledge is divine and, acted upon, leads heavenward.

All nature is a lesson book and teacher to everyone who will learn, and the things of nature can bring spiritual truth home to the heart and direct the mind toward God. The daily task instead of a mere round of toil is brightened and uplifted by constant reminders of the spiritual and unseen, for common duties are invested with solemn dignity, bound with divine truth and shown related to eternal interests. Jesus linked lessons of truth with things in nature so they could be recalled amid the busy cares of daily life, and birds and flowers and grass and leaves helped His hearers remember sacred lessons when they later saw them. The lily so used teaches simplicity and trust in God's care, and the flowers of the field teach trust and faith that if God so clothes the grass He will much more clothe His people.

The beauty with which God clothes flowers and grass is evidence of His love and a lesson in trusting Him rather than giving way to little faith, revealing His workmanship, wisdom, power and tender fatherly care. Though the grass lasts only briefly and is soon withered and burned as fuel, He clothes it with beauty beyond the robes of kings, and the beauty and colors of flowers and the green earth express His love and assure that His care for people is greater still. He loves what is beautiful and good, and has given natural things for enjoyment to turn the mind from artificial display to the natural, calling people to recognize dependence on Him rather than give themselves to worldly display and possessions. Graceful forms and delicate hues may be copied by human skill, yet no human touch can impart life to even one flower or blade, for every wayside blossom owes its being to one pulse of life from God's great heart, and its beauty and life come from His power.

The lesson directs from passing beauty to its Creator, for what God clothes with beauty today may be burned tomorrow, and nature points beyond itself to God's power and goodness and gives reason to trust His care. Though marred by sin, the natural world still recalls the Eden home where Adam and Eve lived and points to the time when that home will be restored and the earth filled with praise to the Lord, its glories a mere shadow of Paradise and a voice speaking of unseen eternal treasures. Reading aright this lesson from the book of nature that God has opened requires greater natural simplicity and far more spirituality, grasping through faith the eternal that God has set before the soul in earthly forms until the depths of the soul are reached, awakening not only reverence but love to God. God's care for the grass does not mean that He personally dwells in grass, flowers or trees, and this teaching opposed the self-righteous scribes' and Pharisees' doctrines and corrected their picture of God as stern and without compassion, mercy or love, supporting confidence in His fatherly love.

Spiritual Clothing and Character

Clothing in the verse points beyond fabric to inward and heavenly adornment, to the meekness and righteousness of Christ that make a person precious in God's sight and fit for immortality. The God who clothes blossoms with beauty desires still more to clothe the soul with the beauty of Christlike character and holiness. He clothes His people with Christ's righteousness, and the heavenly adorning, even the robe of Christ's righteousness, must be put on by every human being who would enter the pearly gates of the New Jerusalem, with all needed things added to those who seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. This is the greater beauty with which God desires to clothe the soul, the character of Christ, and those who display it reveal His image and give Him thanksgiving and praise. To share Christ's throne requires that character, for trust in Jesus rather than doubt of His love prepares for that place.

As God's life unfolds in a lily through His word and the gifts of rain and sunshine, so His life can unfold in a person who yields to grace. The same word that creates flowers produces the graces of the Spirit, coming freely as sunshine and rain upon the yielding soul. In spiritual life as in nature all growth depends upon the Lord, and each person is to grow up under God's own supervision to his own individual measure. No one grows by taking thought to add to stature, nor by patterning after another mind or character, for God gives each an individual work and forms each character according to His own design rather than making all alike.

Because God so clothes what today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, artificial display is not needed and outward striving for adornment is unnecessary and useless, since human effort cannot compare with a simple flower of the field. Outward adornment does not give character its worth, and trust in the Maker supports clothing that is modest, simple, becoming, durable, healthful and suited to practical use rather than chosen for display. He who puts tint and color on grass and lilies can provide suitable, comfortable, neat and warm clothing without extravagance, gained by exploring the field and cultivating plants rather than by extra ribbons, ruffles, jewelry and expensive dress. The beauty of flowers and birds turns the mind from the artificial to the natural things God has given for enjoyment, teaching to distinguish the genuine from the artificial and to value natural simplicity above artificial display, with parents using each leaf and flower to show children God's wonderful power, love and painting hand.

Time spent pursuing worldly styles takes away from the work God gives and from seeking the Spirit's grace and a meek and quiet spirit. Excessive eating, drinking and dressing become sins that waste entrusted time, money and strength and damage the body so it cannot be presented as a living sacrifice, and concern for food and clothing must not become greater than God's call. Jewelry and expensive dress do not give true influence or a welcome that endures, while living simply and working in simplicity, dressing modestly and becomingly, gains a welcome wherever one goes. True power with God comes from devotion to Christ's service, from the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, with kindness and forethought for others precious in the sight of heaven and to be gained now without delay where they have been neglected.

Practical Life Applications

The verse calls those set on becoming rich to be content and to yield the will to the control of the Holy Spirit, refusing service to mammon and refusing to lay up corruptible treasure on earth, but laying up treasure in heaven where flood cannot wash it away, fire cannot consume it, moth and rust do not corrupt and thieves do not steal, which is the only saving bank that never fails. It rebukes striving for place and position, reaching for honor and recognition, and elbowing a fellow worker to make room for personal plans, directing ambition instead to honor Christ at every step and making the greatest desire to work in just the place God has assigned where He can look with approval. It calls for freely putting entrusted means into God's treasury as His almoners to sustain His cause, putting away strife, hasty temper, cruel speech and unkind thought as manifestations of unconverted self. Anxiety about necessities is little faith that fears want and hoards earthly treasure, while the heavenly Father who knows all needs, feeds birds that do not sow or reap, and arrays lilies beyond Solomon, adds all needed things to those who seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness with the heart fixed on heavenly things rather than earthly concerns.

Domestic duties and care of children must not be made an excuse for neglecting study of the Word and taking up God-given responsibilities, for life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Every gift including clothing is to be recognized as coming from God, and gratitude for His goodness filling the heart brings a heavenly atmosphere to surround the soul. Lives are to be ordered by its truth through more diligent study of the Scriptures as the truth of the living God, the foundation of faith and the assurance on which hope of eternal life in the kingdom of heaven is built, lessons not yet fully learned.

The grass, though it lives only a short time, has an appointed errand from God and does it by clothing the fields with beauty through silent yet ceaseless obedient action, like the moving ocean, wind-stirred leaves, sun, moon and stars, together with the practical lifework of Christ. This belongs to the law of obedient action in which every created thing fulfills its mission in harmony, and it teaches that man, with mind and body made in God's likeness and similitude, must likewise be active to fill his appointed place, for idleness is sin. The verse does not teach the extreme that Christians should give no thought to temporal welfare and should refrain from work, which Paul's teaching and example rebuke, and its provision is applied to sustaining diligent workers through the earth's yield.

This lesson should be loved and learned and taught to little children, with parents using each leaf and flower to turn minds from the artificial to the natural, teaching from them God's wonderful power, love, work, and painting hand. God made every spire and tint as an expression of love to form beautiful characters, giving beauty to enjoy and wanting their best and holiest affections rather than devotion to artificial display, since outward display and striving for artificial adornment are unnecessary and useless and human effort cannot compare with a simple flower. Children can learn God's care and great love and certainty to clothe them from lilies opening buds on the lake, growing through weeds, refusing what would taint beauty and gathering only what develops the blossom, and parents can help them appreciate creation as an expression of God's love especially on the Sabbath. Applied to parents, the teaching about laying up treasure in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and thieves do not steal, because where treasure is the heart will be also, enlightens them not to scold and fret at children or punish harshly in anger, but to act as teachers in God's place doing His mind and will, to bring up children in strict temperance, to prepare needed clothing beforehand so work is not left for the Sabbath, and to nurture them with gentle repeated care as plants flourish rather than force.

Sick people surrounded by His wonderful works should be pointed from nature to nature's God, for the God whose hand made lofty trees, grass, buds and flowers cares for birds and flowers and will much more care for human beings formed in His image, and every bud and flower is an expression of His love. Lovely flowers are precious messengers of God's love to His afflicted family, and gathering them while living amid attractive country surroundings restores health and happiness by reviving drooping spirits and recruiting waning strength. Looking from nature to the Provider diverts attention from self, aches and pains, directs thoughts to God, uplifts minds from things seen to things unseen, and brings blessing and healing so sorrow, melancholy and depression leave and angels draw near. Placed in warm sunshine and pure air among flowers, trees, birds and their songs, away from the city in sanitariums with grounds of grass and fruit trees and leafy shade, the sick can live out-of-doors, rest in shade, work a little among flowers, gather flowers and fruit, listen to birds praising God, and recover soundness of body and mind without drugs through good treatment, wholesome diet, fresh air, sunshine and exercise, while physicians and helpers uplift God and diseased minds grow healthier.

Little faith is rebuked for lost time when God's provision for health is not promptly provided, specifically in delaying to establish sanitariums in favored places near Los Angeles and elsewhere outside the city where the sick could have been helped out-of-doors, because God ordained medical missionary work as a means of saving souls and calls churches to engage in it. Workers for Christ who are children of the same family with one heavenly Father should answer His care for lilies by striving for unity, not putting on garments of heaviness with doubts and lack of confidence in brethren, not hurting the soul by gathering thistles and thorns, but gathering roses and lilies and pinks and expressing their fragrance in words and acts.