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.

Philippians 4:6–7 (KJV)
6 Be careful for nothing; but in everything 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.

ILLUSTRATION: I’ll Alter Him
A young bride was so nervous she said to her pastor, “I’m afraid I might not make it through the ceremony.” The pastor soothed her, saying, “When you enter the church tomorrow and the processional begins, you will be walking down the same aisle you’ve walked many times before. Concentrate on that aisle. When you get halfway down the aisle, you’ll see the altar, where you and your family have worshiped for many years. Concentrate on that altar. Then, when you’re almost to the altar, you will see your groom, the one you love. Concentrate on him.” The next day, the bride walked down the aisle with her chin up and eyes bright. But those along the center were a bit surprised to hear her muttering over and over, “Aisle, altar, him. Aisle, altar, him.” [I’ll Alter Him!]
—J. R. Love, Rushton, Louisiana. ¹.

• How many of you married people have learned that you can’t alter your spouse? This spouse was worried that she might not make it through the ceremony. We are going to talk about this area of worry.
• 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. Don’t be like the congregation that said ‘Yes and Amen’, when they were asked, “Is it God’s will to heal little children?” When that same congregation was asked the follow-up question, “Where is the proof of that in the Bible?” Blank looks fell upon the entire crowd. We subscribe to certain thoughts and think that they are right because they sound right. But remember, nine hundred people took poison and died in Guyana at the hands of Jim Jones.  All those who tragically died thought what they were hearing sounded right also! You cannot go by what sounds right. You have to know what sounds right! So, lack of knowledge is one hindrance to receiving from God. A second handicap to receiving is engaging in the sin of worry.
• Along this line there are two verses you should become familiar with.

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

• The word ‘care’ or ‘careful’ is King James ‘1600’s language.
• If two people during the seventeenth century held a conversation and one of them said ‘My child was sick last night and I’m just so careful about it’, 21st century ears would think that was strange.
• Twenty first century folk would expect to hear ‘My child was sick last night and I’m just so worried about it.’
• The word ‘care’ or ‘careful’ in the KJV is Old English.

DEFINITION: careful/μέριμνα/merimna – anxiety or worry.

• The word ‘care’ in our modern language means to be ‘cautious’ or to have ‘forethought’.
• You can see that words change meaning over time which is why it is important when defining words to look at definitions in the context of periods of time they were used in.
• Back in the early days of the charismatic move Bible teachers who understood what the Word ‘care’ meant in the KJV began to pick with our colloquial phrases. We were cautioned not to say, ‘Take care’ to someone as you were leaving off a conversation or stepping away from someone’s presence.
• Actually, this is a lack of understanding the principle of the evolution of words.
• We do not speak in Kings James language. We may read King James but we need to translate the principles we are reading into 21st century language.
• It is not what the words meant in the seventeenth century that counts. It is how it strikes your spirit today. It is certainly okay to have forethought and be cautious in certain situations.
• Modern translations read to this effect taking out the word ‘care’ and ‘careful’.

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.
• The New Testament was written by Holy men as they were moved upon by the Holy Spirit (2Peter 1:21).
• The Holy Spirit says what Jesus says and Jesus said, ‘My doctrine is not mine but His that sent me.’ (Jn. 7:16)
• The Godhead, therefore, is saying ‘do not worry’, ‘do not be anxious.’
• If you go cross-wise to these words, what is that called?
• In the Bible it is called sin or missing the mark.
• Worry is a sin!
• Some have a hard time understanding that because their definition of sin is skewed by their own preconception.
• Many people when they think of sin, think of lying, stealing and adultery.
• They think these are the ‘big sin guns.’
• In fact, true and genuine Christians shudder in horror at the thought of committing any of these sins.
• We should react to worry in the same fashion.
• When you begin to view it correctly, you will begin to monitor your thought life and when worried thoughts try to invade, you will treat them as you do the thought of committing adultery.
• 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.
• Why is worry sinful?
• There are many reasons.
• One of them is that worry causes people to become physically ill.
• Think about that?
• Here is what the sin of worry looks like when you step back and take in the whole picture.
• Jesus died for your sins.
• He took stripes upon His back for your healing. (We talked about that in Which of Jesus Stripes Healed You? – podcast episode 21.)
• And here you are propping open a door that Jesus closed by His death, burial and resurrection.

ILLUSTRATION: Scientists have proved that worry produces sickness.
In times of emotional stress, a hormone, neuropeptide Y (NPY), is released into the body. This hormone undermines the body’s immune system and literally makes you sick. That’s what a team of Australian researchers at Sydney’s Garvan Institute scientifically confirmed in 2005. According to Fabienne Mackay of the institute, “During periods of stress, nerves release a lot of NPY, and it gets into the bloodstream where it inhibits the cells in the immune system that look out for and destroy pathogens in the body. “That stress makes you sick is no longer a myth; it is a reality, and we need to take it seriously.” ².

• It is interesting that the political commentator, who owned the rights to the article credited above, died at 43 of a heart attack in 2012 due to a high-stress, revved up, emotional life style. ³.

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.
• Do you think Jesus has any ability along this line?
• Prayer is not a shotgun proposition.
• It is not a ‘hope so that He heard me’ proposition. It is not thinking when you pray, ‘I hope I get 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.
• And if it is, get your perspective about it right.
• You know, some of the things that people worry about is all perspective anyway.

ILLUSTRATION: Put Things in Perspective
We all know the danger of risk. Yet we have a confounding habit of worrying about perceived dangers while ignoring real ones. Consider:

• We agonized over the avian flu, which [as of December 2006] had killed no one in the United States. Yet we had to be cajoled into getting vaccinated for the common flu, which contributes to the deaths of 36,000 Americans each year.
• White-knuckle fliers routinely choose to drive rather than fly when traveling long distances, heedless that a few hundred people die in U.S. commercial airline crashes in a year compared with 44,000 killed in motor vehicle wrecks.
• We wring our hands over the mad cow pathogen that might be (but almost certainly isn’t) in our hamburger, yet we hardly worry about the cholesterol that contributes to the heart disease that annually kills 700,000 of us.
• Shoppers still look at a bag of spinach for fear of E. coli bacteria while filling their carts with fat-sodden French fries and salt-crusted nachos.
• We put filters on faucets, install air ionizers in our homes, and lather ourselves with antibacterial soap. At the same time, 20 percent of all adults smoke, nearly 20 percent of drivers and more than 30 percent of backseat passengers don’t use seat belts, and two-thirds of us are overweight or obese.

In short, shadowed by peril, you would think we would get pretty good at distinguishing the risks likeliest to do us in from the ones that are statistical long shots. But you would be wrong.
—Jeffrey Kluger, “Why We Worry about the Things We Shouldn’t,” Time (December 4, 2006)

• Our minds latch onto one area of fear and skews our perspective of so many other things.
• 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.
• This phrase, ‘do the work’ is one that needs to be burned into your thinking.
• 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.
• When will you deal with worry? If not today, when?
• When will you say, “I will trust God’s Word instead of succumbing to the feeling of worry?”
• When will you acknowledge that faith in God’s Word is a greater force than the fear that comes from worry?
• 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.
• This is not easy, but you have to do it.
• Whatever the Lord told us to do in the Word, we can do.
• If that were not true then the Lord would be unfair in His asking us to do something that we don’t have the ability to do in the first place.

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. ⁴.

• 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.”
• So, you commit that area to the Lord.
• If you transfer your care to Him that means that you don’t have it anymore. How could you cast it on Him and still have it?
• 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.
• The following thought is liberating.
• 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 what you believe.
• You believe that you transferred it.
• You believe that God has it right now.
• You believe that God is working on the problem right now for you.
• 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.

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?