Very few of Gods people have understanding concerning the consequences or the cost that is incurred when anxiety becomes a part of their lives; Webster’s dictionary’s defines anxiety as a state of uneasiness, a state of worry, abnormal fear that takes place without a specific cause or source.
Hear the word of God,
John 14:27
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
What does the word of God have to say about anxiety?
Prov 12:25
Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop: but a good word maketh it glad.
Let me read it to you in another version just for the sake of understanding,
An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up.
Listen and take notes, an anxious heart brings heaviness to a person’s life.
Song 2:15
Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.
Let me read this also in another version
Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.
Now allow me to ask you a question and please be honest, have the little foxes stolen your joy, have the little foxes stolen your peace, and is there a heaviness about you because of worry and anxiety.
Prov 15:15
All the days of the afflicted are evil: but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.
Allow me to read this to you as it should read in our modern day language,
All the days of the desponding and afflicted are made evil by anxious thoughts and forebodings but he who has a glad heart has a continual feast regardless of circumstances.
What does that word forebodings mean?
It means a feeling of impending evil, a feeling of dread, an anticipation of something going wrong.
What is the purpose of problems?
Problems are designed by the devil to keep you from enjoying life, to keep you having life and having it abundantly.
Satan does not create all problems; sometimes we create problems for our selves even when a problem did not exist.
Sometimes we as children of God make a big deal out of nothing and we make mountains out of molehills.
Here is tremendous advice to those who have an ear to hear, for the majority of most problems this is what you have to do, deal with them, forget them and go on.
How many times have you become upset over something that was just not worth getting upset about and the result was that the little foxes spoiled the vine and stole your vineyard that was in bloom.
Count up in just one day the things that upset you, count up in one week that things that upset you and because your life consists of one upset after another there is going to be very little time for joy or peace.
John 14:1
Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
Listen to the word of God, let not your heart be troubled, let not your heart be distressed, let not your heart be agitated, afraid or unsettled
John 14:27 again
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Again we hear the Lord telling us not to allow our hearts to be troubled, neither to let it be afraid, because He has given us His peace and He has left it with us.
Do we really understand what the Lord is saying here?
Stop being anxious, stop be fretful and stop worrying,
And the reason that He is telling us to stop is because we are the ones who have control on how we respond and how we react to those things that have a tendency to trouble us.
The Lord is saying to us,
You can choose trouble or you can choose peace, you can choose anxiety or you can choose calm, and you can even choose calm once you have started to become agitated.
John 16:33
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
The one who has overcome the world lives inside of you.
The one who has been victorious over every situation and every circumstance lives inside of you, the one who is triumphant lives inside of you and what He wants you to know and do is to be of good cheer or in other words cheer up.
The word of God tells us that persecution is going to come our way because of our stand for the word,
What are we to do?
CHEER UP
The bible tells us that we are going to have trials and tribulation,
So what are we to do?
CHEER UP
But Preacher you do not know what I have been going through, you do not know what has been taking place in my life,
CHEER UP He lives inside of you.
Isa 12:3
Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.
Hab 3:18
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
What are these scriptures telling us?
They are telling us to cheer up, they are telling us to enjoy life and the abundance of that life through the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are telling us to smile,
Be happy don’t worry
Believe me if I can lighten up anybody can lighten up, my nature and my personality has always been one of intensity, I come from a background of abuse and violence. it was in my home, it was what I lived and when Christ came into my life all of the pain and all of the hurts that I had experienced and lived with for 33 years we’re all there front and center
There was anxiety, anger, rage and all that was present when He came in,
There are a great many people who have anxiety because of deep emotional hurts, deep emotional bondage because of things that have happened in their past, and it is not an easy thing to rid yourself of bondages, shackles, and chains that do not want to be broken.
But if you will allow the Holy Spirit to take you through a step by step process that process will bring you into freedom.
So let’s deal with the purpose of anxiety.
What is the purpose behind anxiety?
The purpose behind anxiety is to bring tension and indifference, to such a degree that you are upset, jittery, jumpy, and defensive.
To be anxious is to be disquieted, disturbed and distracted.
Look at
1 Pet 3:4
But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
Let me read it to you again in another version,
but {let it be} the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.
This scripture is directed at and is speaking to wives concerning being in subjection to there husbands, now since our wives are to be in subjection to there husbands and we as husbands are to
be in subjection to Christ then it goes without saying that this scriptures pertains to bothl of us, wives and husbands.
Hear the word of God,
Let it be the hidden person of the heart,
Who is the hidden person of the heart?
Col 3:3
For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Now please take notice what the word of God tells us
but {let it be} the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.
It is the gentle and quiet spirit that is precious in the sight of the Lord
James 3:13-18
Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
So why is anxiety and worry and fear such a huge tool in the hands of the devil, because it robs us of all the good things that God has done for us, it robs us of the life and the abundance that He has given to us and it robs us of the intimate relationship that He desires that we walk in.
John 10:10
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
The thief comes to steal, destroy and to kill the life that has been given abundantly to the children of the Redeemed.
I wonder how many reading this can identify with what I am about to say,
I was raised in the midst of abuse and violence and because of the abuse that I received, because of the lack of love and the misdirection of shallow love, everything was burdensome, every thing was tense and because of it many things were blown out of proportion.
I did not know how to love, I did not know how to relax, to trust nor to cast all my cares upon one, who would take care of me,
In my way of thinking if I could not depend on and trust my earthly Father, if I could not trust some one who I could see, then how was I to trust some one whom I could not see.
And because of the way that I was brought up it caused a lot of anxiety, distress and intensity that I carried on into my adult life and I had to learn,
Ps 118:24
This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
I had to learn to rejoice and to rejoice in today,
Today is the day that the Lord has made, today is the day that I am to rejoice in, today is the day that has been given to me to rejoice, today I will rejoice in the revelation of victorious power.
If anyone is going to be mad—- let it be the devil because today is the day to rejoice and I will be glad in it.
Anxiety wants to steal your rejoicing.
Listen and learn,
Anxiety is caused by trying to mentally and emotionally get into things that have not yet arrived or things that have already been here,
In other words you trying to get into things that have not yet arrived or staying in things that have already been here.
Anxiety is leaving the place where you are to go to the place of the future or go to the place of the past.
Yes I know that there are many things to be anxious about, the world that we live in, things that are taking place around our lives, the things taking place with our families and with our children.
There are many things to be concerned and anxious about but our daily confession should be
This is the day that the lord has made i will rejoice and be glad in it
Phil 4:4-7
Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.
Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.
Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Twice in this scripture we are told to rejoice, we are told not to worry, not to fret, not to be troubled or to have anxiety but to pray and to give thanks unto God in everything,
The word of God does not tell us to give thanks when everything is over but to give thanks in everything.
2 Cor 3:18
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Let me read this to you in another version,
All of us, then, reflect the glory of the Lord with uncovered faces; and that same glory, coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit, transforms us into his likeness in an ever greater degree of glory.
So what this means is that there are stages or degrees of glory in which we are changed into his image and likeness in our spiritual walk,
So what we need to do is to learn how to enjoy each degree of spirituality that we are going through in our process of transformation and enjoy it to the fullest.
It is true that we are not yet where we need to be, but you need to thank God that you are not where you used to be and thank and praise Him for every stage in our development in the process as we draw near to Him.
True peace and joy comes from seeking Him, to seek and find Him brings forth pleasure and enjoyment and ensures going forth to the next level in our development.
To live in the fullness of joy in the Lord depends on finding something to be glad about besides our current situation and circumstances; to live in the fullness of joy in the Lord depends on finding that joy that comes from the inside and not the outside.
We must learn to not be anxious about anything but to rejoice and give thanks and praise God in everything.
When the devil wants to burden us down with anxiety and worry we must give it to God in prayer and in thankfulness, thanking Him for His protective power and His grace that keeps us.
To those who refuse to worry and be anxious He has promised them his peace and His presence.
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