Simplicity and Reordering the Loves of Our Heart

Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33 (ESV)

Key points

The idea of living with simplicity may mean you pass on unused clothes and household items once a year.

While that is great, simplicity as a spiritual practice for transformation has more to do with our heart attitude.

Matthew recorded Jesus words spoken to gatherings of people at different times.

Simplicity as a spiritual practice for transformation is all about our heart attitude.

The verse for today is from the sermon on the mount and in the Message Version reads: Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Matthew 6:33 (ESV)

What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving.

To simplify our lives, we all need to courageously assess whether we love the things we have and the relationships we have more than we trust God.

Richard Foster gives us a way to put the words of Jesus into a practical assessment:

We all need to courageously assess whether we love the things we have and the relationships we have more than we trust God.

“If what we have, we can receive as a gift from God; and if what we have, we know is to be cared for by God; and if what we have can be available to others when it is clearly right and good, then we are living in the inward reality of simplicity.

“But if what we have, we feel that we alone have gotten; and if what we have, we believe is up to us to hold on to; and if what we have, we cannot make available to others when it is clearly right and good, then we are living in duplicity.”

Today, let’s courageously place the people, things and experiences we love into the sentences above and ask God to help us reorder the loves of our hearts to put Him first.

Listen to this episode of Real Hope | The Podcast in the player above, on the Hope 103.2 app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to the YouVersion plan or listen to Real Hope | The Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Feature image: Photo by CanvaPro

Series written by Kath Henry

Originally published as Spiritual Formation – Simplicity and Reordering the Loves of Our Heart

Feature image: CanvaPro