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

(m) By labour.

Matthew 6:28 Parallel Commentaries

August 27. "Take no Thought for Your Life" (Matt. vi. 25).
"Take no thought for your life" (Matt. vi. 25). Still the Lord is using the things that are despised. The very names of Nazarene and Christian were once epithets of contempt. No man can have God's highest thought and be popular with his immediate generation. The most abused men are often most used. There are far greater calamities than to be unpopular and misunderstood. There are far worse things than to be found in the minority. Many of God's greatest blessings are lying behind the devil's scarecrows …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

November 21. "Consider the Lilies How they Grow" (Matt. vi. 28).
"Consider the lilies how they grow" (Matt. vi. 28). It is said that a little fellow was found one day by his mother, standing by a tall sunflower, with his feet stuck in the ground. When asked by her, "What in the world are you doing there?" he naively answered, "Why, I am trying to grow to be a man." His mother laughed heartily at the idea of his getting planted in the ground in order to grow, like the sunflower, and then, patting him gently on the head, "Why, Harry, that is not the way to grow. …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

'Thy Will be Done'
'Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.'--MATT. vi. 10. It makes all the difference whether the thought of the name, or that of the will, of God be the prominent one. If men begin with the will, then their religion will be slavish, a dull, sullen resignation, or a painful, weary round of unwelcome duties and reluctant abstainings. The will of an unknown God will be in their thoughts a dark and tyrannous necessity, a mysterious, inscrutable force, which rules by virtue of being stronger, and …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Cry for Bread
'Give us this day our daily bread.'--MATT. vi. 11. What a contrast there is between the two consecutive petitions, Thy will be done, and Give us this day! The one is so comprehensive, the other so narrow; the one loses self in the wide prospect of an obedient world, the other is engrossed with personal wants; the one rises to such a lofty, ideal height, the other is dragged down to the lowest animal wants. And yet this apparent bathos is apparent only, and the fact that so narrow and earthly a petition …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

'Forgive us Our Debts'
'Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.'--MATT. vi. 12. The sequence of the petitions in the second half of the Lord's Prayer suggests that every man who needs to pray for daily bread needs also to pray for daily forgiveness. The supplication for the supply of our bodily needs precedes the others, because it deals with a need which is fundamental indeed, but of less importance than those which prompt the subsequent petitions. God made us to need bread, we have made ourselves to need pardon. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

'Lead us not into Temptation'
'And lead us not into temptation.'--MATT. vi. 13. The petition of the previous clause has to do with the past, this with the future; the one is the confession of sin, the other the supplication which comes from the consciousness of weakness. The best man needs both. Forgiveness does not break the bonds of evil by which we are held. But forgiveness increases our consciousness of weakness, and in the new desire which comes from it to walk in holiness, we are first rightly aware of the strength and …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

'Deliver us from Evil'
'But deliver us from evil.'--MATT. vi. 13. The two halves of this prayer are like a calm sky with stars shining silently in its steadfast blue, and a troubled earth beneath, where storms sweep, and changes come, and tears are ever being shed. The one is so tranquil, the other so full of woe and want. What a dark picture of human conditions lies beneath the petitions of this second half! Hunger and sin and temptation, and wider still, that tragic word which includes them all--evil. Forgiveness and …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

'Thine is the Kingdom'
'Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.' MATT. vi. 13. There is no reason to suppose that this doxology was spoken by Christ. It does not occur in any of the oldest and most authoritative manuscripts of Matthew's Gospel. It does not seem to have been known to the earliest Christian writers. Long association has for us intertwined the words inextricably with our Lord's Prayer, and it is a wound to reverential feeling to strike out what so many generations have used in …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Hearts and Treasures
'For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.'--MATT. vi. 21. 'Your treasure' is probably not the same as your neighbour's. It is yours, whether you possess it or not, because you love it. For what our Lord means here by 'treasure' is not merely money, or material good, but whatever each man thinks best, that which he most eagerly strives to attain, that which he most dreads to lose, that which, if he has, he thinks he will be blessed, that which, if he has it not, he knows he is discontented. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture