THE
FRUITLESSNESS OF ANXIETY
BREAD
17 Unless the LORD
had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death. 18 When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your
love, O LORD, supported me. 19 When anxiety was great within me, your
consolation brought joy to my soul. Psalm 94:17-19 (NIV)
10 So
then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the
troubles of your body. Ecclesiastes
11:10 (NIV)
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your
life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is
not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or
reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you
not much more valuable than they? 27 Who
of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28 And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies
of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet
I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of
these. 30 If that is how God clothes
the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire,
will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What
shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For
the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you
need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom
and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore
do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has
enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV)
34 “Be
careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and
the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap.
35 For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the
whole earth.” Luke 21:34-35 (NIV)
1 Then Job replied to the LORD: 2 “I
know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. 3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures
my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.” Job
42:1-3 (NIV)
10 I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times,
what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I
please. Isaiah 46:10 (NIV)
11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares
the LORD, “plans to prosper you
and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah
29:11 (NIV)
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7 (NIV)
17 “Ah, Sovereign LORD,
you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched
arm. Nothing is too hard for you.” Jeremiah
32:17 (NIV)
27 “I am the LORD,
the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” Jeremiah
32:27 (NIV)
BUTTER
“Walk on the path of integrity with confidence, and show that you are
invincibly strong in the strength that confidence in God alone confers. In this
way you will be delivered from anxious care; you will be untroubled by evil
tidings, and your heart will be fixed, trusting in the Lord. How pleasant to
float along on the stream of providence! There is no more blessed way of living
than a life of dependence upon a covenant-keeping God. We do not need to worry
because He cares for us; we do not need to carry burdens because He invites us
to cast them upon Him.” Charles H. Spurgeon
“Anxiety
consumes the soul as air a balloon leaving it fixated, frozen and
fruitless. It usurps God’s rightful
position, placing ours weak selves on the throne rather than our Omnipotent Father. It takes the “Whatever you do work at it with
all your heart as working for the Lord”
and places “self” in place of “Lord”. It
seeks to exhaust all the “what if’s” – an impossibility to be sure, fretting and
despairing over things we cannot control and btw were never made to. This does not negate planning rather obsessing. Anxiety goes against God’s divine fiat for
His child to go from “strength to strength” in lieu of being frozen in
paralyzing fear. It gets us nowhere fast.” BHY
“Faith raises the soul above the difficulty, straight to God Himself, and enables one to stand still. We gain nothing by our restless and anxious efforts….It is therefore true wisdom, in all times of difficulty and perplexity, to stand still – to wait only upon God, and He will assuredly open a way for us.” C.H. Mackintosh
“Our Lord never worried and was never anxious,
because His purpose was never to accomplish His own plans but to fulfill God’s
plans. Fretting is wickedness for a
child of God.” Oswald
Chambers
“Today is mine. Tomorrow is none
of my business. If I peer anxiously into the fog of the future, I will strain
my spiritual eyes so that I will not see clearly what is required of me now.” Elisabeth
Elliot
“If the
decision about the lot is the Lord's, whose is the arrangement of our whole
life? If the simple casting of a lot is
guided by Him, how much more the events of our entire life--especially when we
are told by our blessed Savior, ‘Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.’ It would bring
a holy calm over your mind, dear friend, if you were to constantly remember
this. It would relieve your mind from anxiety and enable you to walk in
patience, quietness, and cheerfulness as a Christian should. When a man is
anxious he cannot pray with faith; when he is troubled about the world, he
cannot serve his Master, for his thoughts are serving himself. If you would ‘seek first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness,’ all things would then be added to you. You are meddling
with Christ's business and neglecting your own when you fret about your lot and
circumstances. You have been trying to do the providing and forgetting to do
the obeying. Be wise and pay
attention to the obeying, and let Christ manage the providing. Come and survey
your Father's storehouse, and ask whether He will allow you to starve while He
has so great an abundance in store. Look
at His heart of mercy; see if that can ever prove unkind! Look at His
unsearchable wisdom; see if that will ever be at fault. Above all, look to
Jesus Christ your Intercessor, and ask yourself, while He pleads, can your
Father deal ungraciously with you? If He remembers even sparrows, will He
forget one of the least of His poor children? ‘Cast your burden on the LORD,
and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.’” C. H. Spurgeon revised by Alistair Begg
“Often fear is the result
of what others might think or rejection by others or feelings of not being good
enough, not being accepted. But all those thoughts are reflected on
self. Indeed, fear is self-focused which is basically pride. While
fear needs approval and is self-focused, love needs the person and is
others-focused. When we walk in fear we spend too much time on thoughts
of our self and on ‘what ifs’ and not enough time on thoughts of God who loves
us with an everlasting love and delights over us with singing. Who always
has our best interest at heart even though circumstances may seem contrary to
that. It is His desire for us to rest secure in Him, not being anxious
about anything and allow Him to work in and through us. May our Lord help
us to stand firm in all the will of God mature and fully assured.” BHY
“When
we are anxious we are inclined to overprepare. We wonder what to say when we
are attacked, how to respond when we are being interrogated, and what defense
to put up when we are accused. It is precisely this turmoil that makes us lose
our self-confidence and creates in us a debilitating self-consciousness. What
is important is not that we have a little speech ready but that we remain
deeply anchored in the love of Jesus, secure about who we are in this world and
why we are here.” Henri
Nouwen
“The answer to much anxiousness is
always to exalt Christ.” Ann Voskamp
HEART SAVOR
·
Fretting is not a Fruit of the Spirit.
·
Cast all your cares on Him for He
cares for you.
- ·
Anxiety is placing our trust in the wrong
direction – us; rather than in the right direction – Him. 5 Trust
in the LORD with all your heart and
lean not on your own understanding; 6 in
all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)
