Observe God’s Blessed Birds, not Mammon’s Cursed World

David W Palmer

Jesus is the greatest teacher of all time; he has the most vital content and the greatest teaching style ever used. He is also the supreme discipler, trainer, and apprentice maker, using the utmost ingenious discipleship method:

You watch me;

I explain how I do it and what you will need to succeed;

We do it together;

I watch you, and train you to competency; and then,

When ready, go into the entire world and replicate my ministry.

We are sitting with his twelve disciples on a mountaintop to receive today’s classroom lesson, before heading out—”yoked” to him—for some more on-the-job training:

(Matthew 6:25-26 DKJV) “Therefore I say to you, don’t be distracted by thoughts about your life—what you will eat and drink, nor about your body—what you will put on. Isn’t life more than food and the body than clothing? {26} Observe the birds of the air, for they don’t sow and reap nor do they gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than they are?”

Our Master Jesus is telling us to “observe the birds.” This is a directive from our Lord. Therefore, if we want to avoid serving mammon, we need to obey this command. I know it sounds too simple to be anything more than poetry, but partaking of the Tree of Life involves simple, obedient, child-like faith—not analytical scrutiny of Jesus’s directives. Let’s just do it; let’s simply observe the birds for a moment. After all, this is Jesus’s counter offensive to mammon’s doubt-attack on God’s integrity, the veracity of his word, and his loving intentions towards us.

We note that Jesus said the birds don’t “sow and reap, nor do they gather into barns.” Yet the spiritual law of sowing and reaping is an all-important, over-arching law under which we operate:

(Galatians 6:7 AKJV) Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.

I don’t think Jesus is telling us that spiritual sowing and reaping stopped being important for us, or that he repealed its law. What I believe he is emphasizing in Mat. 6:26 is that the birds don’t earn their own provision through physical, sweaty, pain-filled toil.

This again takes us back to the Garden of Eden. After Adam and Eve submitted to the devil by partaking of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God announced the consequences— including the curse (See: Gen. 3:17–19). The curse that came on man because of Adam and Eve’s transgression was that he would have to work for his own provision with sweaty, painful, sorrow-filled toil. In contrast, the blessing that Jesus restored to those who are in Christ is:

(Proverbs 10:22 NIV) The blessing of the LORD brings wealth, without painful toil for it.

For us, the birds are a symbol of living under God’s blessing. They mostly soar through the air—a picture of us living in the spirit; and they sing—representing us obeying God’s expectation that we, “rejoice evermore,” etc. (1 Thes. 5:16–18 KJV). Birds often only face danger when contacting the solid earth to find and take the provision God assigned to them—a picture of us deployed on our assignment in the world. This is mostly where our provision is found too, and it’s where we face the danger of mammon’s temptation to provide for ourselves.

Under God’s provision, birds certainly don’t have to cultivate crops, plan for shortages, or build storehouses. They just go about their assigned tasks, including singing, soaring, and enjoying fresh food daily. Our feathered object lessons don’t toss and turn all night wondering if God’s provision will be there for them the next day. They sleep soundly, and wake up singing. We can too, if we obey Jesus’s simple—albeit illogical—instructions; in this case, “observe the birds.”

Birds, as a picture of living in God’s blessing, are what Jesus wants us to look at; not at the fearful images the enemy seeks to implant into our thinking, which only serve to drive us to cursed self-provision. And that is mammon’s strategy … anything to get us away from single focus on God and his word.

We may find it amazing that the enemy’s strategy attracts any followers at all, when we look at it in the light of what Jesus is saying:

One master, God, offers to provide for us abundantly—if we love and trust him enough to focus on his system, and obediently serve him in our assignment. He wants us to soar in the spirit, exude praise and gratitude, and to be very vigilant when in contact with the world; and then to enjoy the daily provision he has assigned to us.

The alternative master, mammon, offers us the sweaty, sorrow-filled toil of labouring for our own provision—driven by a combination of his implanted distrust, fear, and lust. This should be a no-brainer; yet only “few” choose the narrow gate to the constricted path that leads to life; “many” choose mammon’s broad road.

(Matthew 7:13–14 DKJV) Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many are entering through it; {14} how narrow is the gate, and constricted is the way, which leads to life! And there are few who find it (the narrow gate).

Serving mammon makes no sense, whereas serving God is a very attractive option—but it takes complete trust. Jesus said that serving both masters simultaneously is impossible. So choose the right master today, and trust him with all of your heart while keeping your eyes on his blessing. And remember to “observe” his daily teaching and reminder object lesson, “birds of the air.”