7 Reasons Jesus Gives Not to Worry

I met with a young man today who is distraught over the betrayal of his fiance. He is anxious and hardly able to function. Maybe you have been there, in some capacity. David Powlison helpfully points out seven reasons Jesus gives from Luke 12:22-34 not to be anxious (Seeing With New Eyes, 116-122).
1. Your life is so much more than food or clothing. A worrier is storing "treasure" in the wrong place. If what you most value can be taken away or destroyed, then you set yourself up for anxiety.
2. Jesus tells people to look around at the world. In this case, look at crows. Jesus says, Consider the ravens. God feeds them even though they don't put a single seed on the ground. They don't ever water their crops.
3. Which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Jesus is saying worry does nothing. It accomplishes zero.
4. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory is not clothed like one of these. This promise is far more than God will take care of you. This is God will clothe you in nothing less than his radiant glory! God is giving you a life that is radiant, indestructible, and full of glory.
5. Don't seek what you are going to eat and drink. The word for worry here means more than feeling anxious; it means to be obsessed, driven, preoccupied. Yes, we do have economic needs. You do need a job. It's not wrong to provide for retirement, to pay your bills, to own a car. But what are you going to be about? Is your life about money? Everyone else's life is: The nations of the world eagerly seek these things. Jesus says, Your Father will give what you need.
6. God promises you himself. This is the climax of Jesus' argument. In effect, what Jesus says is, your Father knows you need these things. If you are preoccupied with his kingdom, then the other things you need will be added on. Get your life to be about what your Father is about.
7. Having given you so much, your Father calls you to the radical freedom of giving your life away. We become anxious because we want to get. We don't want to lose what we've got. Everything is get, got, gotten. But the end of Jesus' message is all give. All thing things we worry about are what we want but could lose. That's why we worry. The best thing you could ever want you will never lose, and you can always give it away. If you die for Christ, you will live. Your Father will provide, so you can give cheerfully and generously.