There are reasons why sometimes Christians struggle to receive from the Lord. Faith comes by hearing God’s Word. If you are unknowledgeable about what the Word of God says in an area of struggle, you can’t have faith in God to help you in that area. Help from on High is received by faith. A second handicap to receiving from God is engaging in the sin of worry. Along this line there are two verses you should become familiar with.
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1 Peter 5:7 (KJV)
7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
Philippians 4:6–7 (KJV)
6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Defining the Sin of Worry
DEFINITION: careful/μέριμνα/merimna – anxiety or worry.
- The word ‘care’ in our modern language means to be ‘cautious’ or to have ‘forethought’.
Philippians 4:6 (ESV)
6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Philippians 4:6 (GW)
6 Never worry about anything. But in every situation let God know what you need in prayers and requests while giving thanks.
- Here are three steps to overcoming worry.
Step #1: Treat Worry As the Sin It Is
- Being anxious about nothing is not merely a suggestion.
- Worry is a sin!
- In order to overcome worry, you have to place it in the ‘sin’ category.
- Granted, it is socially acceptable, in today’s world, to worry but it is not spiritually acceptable.
Step #2: Build Yourself Up in God’s Word
- Worry about an area of your life is a sign that your faith in God may not be healthy.
- If you pray about something, as Philippians 4:6-7 admonishes us to, you are supposed to turn the results of that prayer over to Jesus.
- Now, Jesus has this request and He is going to use His ability to solve it.
- Faith is a confidence’ proposition.
- We don’t just think that we are going to get the answer, we know that we are going to get the answer.
- If we know, in our spirits, that we are going to get the answer that God’s Word promises, and that becomes a buffer against the gnawing feelings of worry and anxiety.
- Worry is a barometer of sorts.
- So, take worry as a challenge to your faith.
- Look at worry as a symptom that reveals to you that there is some work that you need to do in building yourself up.
- And then, do the work.
- Jesus believes in ‘doing the work’ and putting the time in.
John 6:29 (KJV)
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
- Believing God’s Word is work.
- That is one reason why some people say, ‘Pray for me’.
- What they are inadvertently saying is, ‘You do the work for me.’
- The body of Christ, can do the work of believing for you to a certain extent.
- But at some, point God expects you to do the work.
- God expects you to do the work of getting in your Bible.
- God expects you to do the work of looking up scriptures that promise the things you need.
- God expects you to do the work of meditating in those truths until they become real and alive on the inside of you.
- God expects you to do the work of releasing your faith.
- God expects you to do the work of praising God until the manifestation comes.
- God expects you to do the work of resisting doubt.
- God expects you to do the work of refusing to worry and be anxious.
- And after having done all that is necessary to stand, God expects you to do the work of standing until the answer comes.
- Rise up and accept the challenge of doing the work.
- There is something else that you should note in Phil. 4:6-7.
- Note the order of things in that verse and do your level best to keep it straight.
- The order is refuse to worry first and, then pray.
- You will have trouble; you will have delays in receiving answers if get this order inverted.
- You have to obey the Bible just like God said it.
- God said do not be worried about anything, first.
- That means don’t pray until you get the ‘worry thing’ under control.
- Be careful for nothing and then pray.
- “In nothing be anxious” and then come boldly to the Throne of God.
- Nothing means nothing meaning. There is no situation where a little bit of worry is acceptable.
- In no situation are we allowed the luxury of worry.
- Deal with worry first, then pray, then give thanks, and then you’ll have the peace of God.
- You simply cannot have the worry of the world and the peace of God at the same time.
Step #3: Cast Your Care upon the Lord
- Phil. 4:8 says that we are supposed to keep our thinking straight.
- Whatever the Lord told us to do in the Word, we can do.
1 Peter 5:7 (KJV)
7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
- God’s Word says of the things that you can do to overcome worry is ‘cast’ that worry on the Lord.
- What does that mean?
- The Lord acknowledges the fact that there will be times when you are going to be confronted with the temptation to worry.
- That is why He gave you instructions about what to do about it.
DEFINITION: cast/ἐπιρίπτω/epiriptō – the word literally means to propel someth. from one place to another, throw. 1.
- Well you can’t physically throw an emotion so the word ‘cast’ has the idea of transfer, transferring the worry to another.
- When God says ‘Cast your care upon me’, He is saying in effect, ‘Transfer your concerns to me and I will take care of it for you.’
- How do you make the transfer?
- Since all operations of God are done by faith, you transfer the emotion of worry to God through that avenue.
- So, what does faith look like in this case?
- It looks like this, “Father, in the Name of Jesus, I am tempted to worry and have anxiety about this problem. Your Word said not to do that. I don’t want to worry. I want to obey your Word. So, I am transferring this concern that I am confronted with over into your hands. I refuse to think about it. I refuse to meditate and try to figure out the solution. I trust you to do all of that. I am going to act like I don’t have a worry in the world.”
- Now you do the work of keeping it transferred and refuse to pull the problem back into your thought life.
1 Peter 5:8–9 (KJV)
8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
- Notice, we are instructed to ‘Be sober, be watchful’ because the enemy will try to get you to reverse the transfer.
- Only you can transfer it and only you can pull it back.
- God can’t transfer it. He told you to do it.
- The devil can’t make you pull it back.
- If you resist the devil steadfastly in faith, he is toast.
- How do you resist the devil?
- The same way that Jesus did, you speak the Word to him.
- When a mental picture of failure comes into your thoughts, when you sense anxiety because of that thought, you speak your faith.
- You say, “No, in the Name of Jesus, I cast the care of that situation upon the Lord. I made the transfer. He’s taking care of it. If He is taking care of it, I am going to sleep. There is no need for both of us staying up all night over it.”
- You must do this steadfastly.
- Steadfastly means you keep doing it every time the sense of worry comes, you keep reminding the enemy that you no longer have the problem because God has it now.
- After a while, you will notice that the fear and the worry will be gone.
- The thought will come but it won’t grab you like it did before.
Call to Action:
In the parable of the sower, found in Mark 4:3-20, Jesus tells us that worry and anxiety chokes off the Word. If you engage in the sin of worry, the Word of God that you have been trying to pour into your life will, in fact, leak out. If the Word gets choked off, it doesn’t matter how much you have poured in previously; it doesn’t matter how long you have been saved or how faithful a church member you have been in your life. Your prayer life will not work. The Word is the foundation of the prayer endeavor. If you choke off the Word, you are in bad shape. You have to deal with worry and you can do it by taking these three steps outlined above.
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Question: Are there any additional steps that you may have taken that helped you to overcome the sin of worry? Would you please leave your comments in the comments section below?
- William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 378 ↩