Full of WorrySample

Do not be anxious

As children of God, we’re called, commanded, taught, and exhorted to live lives in keeping with who we are and what the Lord has done for us. We live our lives differently than those who do not know God. We are exhorted to pray, give, fast, store up our treasure in the right places, and trust our God.

Our trust in God is made possible by other distinctions. Because we’re not a people held captive by others’ behavior, we can trust our God. If everything in our lives depended on how we’re treated by humans, it would be impossible to live our lives free of anxiety. We would always be troubled by how someone is dealing with or responding to us. But if we understand that we’re living our lives responding to God, focused on worship and not the treatment received from other human beings, we will not be full of anxiety even when we're persecuted.

Our life is not dictated by what someone else does. Even when we see departures or apostasy around us, we go on in faith. When troubling things are happening in this temporal world, our eyes are fixed on eternity. We understand what this world is all about from the standpoint of Scripture. We’re not surprised by its sin. We have our eyes fixed on the world that is coming.

We are people who rest in God’s care for us. In Matthew chapter 6, our Lord addresses the subject of anxiety six times in five different verses:

Verse 25: “Do not be anxious about your life”

Verse 27: “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”

Verse 28: “And why are you anxious about clothing?”

Verse 31: “Therefore do not be anxious…”

Verse 34: “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.”

For the Lord to say this, again and again, it must be a very important issue. So, the question is, as you hear your Savior speak about this subject, will you obey God in the matter of worry? Will you obey Him when He commands you not to be anxious?