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Do you eat to live, or do you live to eat?  Read that sentence again. In other words, when it comes to food, what is your motive?  Do you eat for your own comfort and to satisfy the desires of your palate, or do you see food as a tool to fuel your body and sustain it without abusing it?  Touchy subject, I know.

How about money?  Do you work to live, or do you live to work? Is your hunger for a bigger income controlling you, or are you controlling your money?  Somewhere along the line, we’ve gotten confused about the purpose of the basics of life.  We stopped seeing things like food and money and clothes and cars and jobs as basic tools for living, and instead made idols out of them.  They became something for us to serve rather than blessings provided by God to serve us!  Most of us find ourselves living to get all these things and maintain an ever-improving lifestyle with them.  We have turned from trusting God for the provision of all our needs to spending virtually all of our energies on getting more food, more money, more clothes, more toys, more stuff!!  And in the process, we have neglected God’s request for us to focus on our relationship with Him and introducing others to Him!  We’re so busy devoting our time and energy to getting, getting, and getting more that we reserve little to no time for giving.

Matthew 6:24-34Matthew 6:24-34
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
Money ²⁴ You cannot be the slave of two masters! You will like one more than the other or be more loyal to one than the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Worry ²⁵ I tell you not to worry about your life. Don't worry about having something to eat, drink, or wear. Isn't life more than food or clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds in the sky! They don't plant or harvest. They don't even store grain in barns. Yet your Father in heaven takes care of them. Aren't you worth more than birds? ²⁷ Can worry make you live longer? f live longer: Or “grow taller.” ²⁸ Why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow. They don't work hard to make their clothes. ²⁹ But I tell you that Solomon with all his wealth g Solomon with all his wealth: The Jewish people thought that Solomon was the richest person who had ever lived. wasn't as well clothed as one of them. ³⁰ God gives such beauty to everything that grows in the fields, even though it is here today and thrown into a fire tomorrow. He will surely do even more for you! Why do you have such little faith? ³¹ Don't worry and ask yourselves, “Will we have anything to eat? Will we have anything to drink? Will we have any clothes to wear?” ³² Only people who don't know God are always worrying about such things. Your Father in heaven knows that you need all of these. ³³ But more than anything else, put God's work first and do what he wants. Then the other things will be yours as well. ³⁴ Don't worry about tomorrow. It will take care of itself. You have enough to worry about today.

WP-Bible plugin clearly puts things in perspective.  In this passage Jesus is speaking about who our master will be.  Will it be God or something else?  He directs us not to worry about everyday life- whether we will have enough food or drink, or enough clothes to wear.  He says, “Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing?”  Take a moment now to read those ten verses…

Did you catch the call in verses 31-34?  “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat?  What will we drink? What will we wear?’  These things dominate the thought of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.  Seek the Kindgom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need… (emphasis mine)

How much will God provide us as we seek His Kingdom first?  EVERYTHING! Check out this passage:

The next day the crowd that had stayed on the far shore saw that the disciples had taken the only boat, and they realized Jesus had not gone with them.  Several boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the Lord had blessed the bread and the people had eaten.  So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went across to Capernaum to look for him.  They found him on the other side of the lake and asked, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”  Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs.  But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food.  Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you.  For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.”

John 6: 22-27John 6: 22-27
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
The Bread That Gives Life ²² The people who had stayed on the east side of the lake knew that only one boat had been there. They also knew that Jesus had not left in it with his disciples. But the next day ²³ some boats from Tiberias sailed near the place where the crowd had eaten the bread for which the Lord had given thanks. ²⁴ They saw that Jesus and his disciples had left. Then they got into the boats and went to Capernaum to look for Jesus. ²⁵ They found him on the west side of the lake and asked, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” ²⁶ Jesus answered, “I tell you for certain that you are not looking for me because you saw the miracles, a miracles: The Greek text has “signs” here and “sign” in verse ³⁰ . but because you ate all the food you wanted. ²⁷ Don't work for food that spoils. Work for food that gives eternal life. The Son of Man will give you this food, because God the Father has given him the right to do so.”

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There it is in black and white (and likely red if you read it in a Bible).  “Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you.”  If and when we do that, God takes care of everything else!  Now, he may not provide you exactly what you want when you want it.  No, that fantasy figure is Santa Claus, and he’s not real! God provides us what we need when we need it.  We forget that he is omniscient and knows what we need better than we do.

And God sure is good.  All the blessings He provides us are beyond what we deserve!  Don’t miss the miraculous signs that the crowd was overlooking that day as they sought out Jesus as their next meal ticket.  Have you reveled in the miracle of your next breath?  How about the miracle of your child’s smile and how their eyes move so rapidly underneath their eyelids when you watch them sleeping at night.  What about the miracle of the sunrise and sunset today, or the high tide and low tide?  Did you remember that we’re currently spinning through space around the sun at a speed of about 67,000 miles per hour?  And we’ve been doing that every moment of every day of every month of every year of every decade that you’ve been alive!!! God is responsible for all of that, and so much more!!

May we spend our energies seeking Him, recognizing that we were made to love God and others, not to eat or earn money or overstock our wardrobes and garages.  As we learn to re-frame the equation, we see that when we put things in proper perspective, we live to worship, AND we worship to live!