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Matthew 6:24-34 : Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God

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24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

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Spiritual Experiences # 4393

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4393. About the Providence of the Lord

About the Providence of the Lord I spoke at length with spirits and angels, saying that one's own wisdom is like a heap of earth scattered thinly throughout the atmosphere in comparison with the whole atmosphere, which is not visible, and the heaps are such that they fall to pieces and amount to nothing in the atmosphere. Providence is as when one walks in dark forests, the exit out of which one does not know; but upon discovering it, attributes the find to his own wisdom; whereas providence is like someone in a tower who is watching the person's vagaries, and leads him without his knowledge to the exit. The reason he attributes it to his own wisdom if he is prompted to observe something of the path, or to coincidence or chance, is that he looks at things present, not at far off goals, of which he sees nothing at all, not even seeing anything of goals in the world, still less in the other life. This was illustrated and confirmed by the angels.

That nothing whatever is achieved without the providence of the Lord, is also illustrated by various things occurring in nature that are attributed to chance, which are the result of providence, as, for example, in trade, in games, in everything else.

  
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Thanks to the Academy of the New Church, and Bryn Athyn College, for the permission to use this translation.