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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Stress and pressure, instead of being things to avoid, strengthen us to accomplish the challenges God sets before us in life.
The wrong way to handle the stresses of life is to worry about them.
We allow our daily concerns to turn into worry and therefore sin when our thoughts become focused on changing the future instead of doing our best to handle our present circumstances.
The Lord is issuing a cease-and-desist order against anxiety based upon the sovereign care of a loving and omnipotent God.
worry cruelly inflicts a severe toll.
Anxiety is blatant distrust of the power and love of God.
Fully trusting our heavenly Father dispels anxiety. And the more we know about Him, the more we will trust Him.
We are not to lavish on ourselves what God has given us for the accomplishment of His holy purposes.
Focusing on earthly treasures produces earthly affections. It blinds our spiritual vision and draws us away from serving God. That’s why God promises to provide what we need.
Jesus gave us, His children, three reasons for not worrying about this life: It is unnecessary because of our Father, it is uncharacteristic because of our faith, and it is unwise because of our future.
God Always Feeds His Creatures
God doesn’t just create life; He also sustains life.
Just as God provides for the birds through their instinct, so God provides
for people through their efforts.
Worry Is Unable to Accomplish Anything Productive
To worry about how long you are going to live and how to add years onto your life is to distrust God. If you give Him your life and are obedient to Him, He will give you the fullness of days. You will experience life to the fullest when you live it to the glory of God. No matter how long or short, it will be wonderful.
God Clothes Even the Meadows in Splendor
Worry Is Uncharacteristic because of Our Faith
If you are a child of God, you by definition have a heavenly Father. To act like you don’t, nervously asking, “What will I eat? What will I drink? With what will I clothe myself?” is to act like an unbeliever in God’s eyes (see vv. 31–32).
The Worrier Strikes Out at God
The Worrier Disbelieves Scripture
The Worrier Is Mastered by Circumstances
When you or I worry, we are choosing to be mastered by our circumstances instead of by the truth of God.
The Worrier Distrusts God
Worry Is Unwise because of Our Future
Providing for tomorrow is good, but worrying about tomorrow is a sin because God is the God of tomorrow just as He is the God of today.
God gives us His grace in the hour we need it. If we worry about the future now, we double our pain without having the grace to deal with it.
Replacing Worry with the Right Focus
God wants you to seek to please Him first, and think about the problem of fear secondly. That is why when speaking of worry (a lesser form of fear), in Matthew 6:33 He commands “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” If you put anything else first—even the desire to rid yourself of a terrifying fear—you will discover that you will fail to achieve either goal. God will not take second place, even to a legitimate concern to be free of fear.5
React to Problems with Thankful Prayer
Instead of praying to God with feelings of doubt, discouragement, or discontent, we are to approach Him with a thankful attitude before we utter even one word.
He was confident of God’s ability to deliver him if He so chose.
The real challenge of Christian living is not to eliminate every uncomfortable circumstance from our lives, but to trust our sovereign, wise, good, and powerful God in the midst of every situation.
The believer who doesn’t live in the confidence of God’s sovereignty will lack God’s peace and be left to the chaos of a troubled heart.
Focus on Godly Virtues
As believers, we’re to leave the sin of worry behind with our prayers and gradually become different people through new ways of thinking and acting.
Since the mind of the unbeliever is corrupt, it doesn’t choose what is good; since it is spiritually blind, it doesn’t know what is good; since its thoughts are futile, it doesn’t perform what is good; and since it is ignorant, it doesn’t even know what evil it is doing.
Some people assume worry is the result of too much thinking. Actually, it’s the result of too little thinking in the right direction.
The New Testament calls us to the mental discipline of right thinking.
Right attitudes and thoughts must precede right practices.
We clothe ourselves with humility toward one another when we meet each other’s needs without regarding any task as being beneath us.
God has a strong reason for hating pride so much; it is the sin that led to the fall of humanity, and it was the fatal flaw of the tempter who brought about such destruction.
The key is never to contest God’s wisdom but instead to accept humbly whatever God brings into your life as coming from His hand.
“Whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4).
Never view the mighty hand of God in your life as a slap in the face; instead, see it as grounds for hope. Realize He has only good intentions toward you as His child, and therefore, expect to see good results from your present circumstances. Such an attitude leaves no steam for worry to operate on.
The word translated “casting” was used to describe throwing something on something else, such as a blanket over a pack animal (e.g., Luke 19:35).
Fellowship is an interchange of mutual care and concern through the agency of our spiritual gifts.
Love is the key to effective ministry. Where love exists there is true humility, which is an essential ingredient in mutual ministries and freedom from anxiety.
If pride is hindering your ministry, concentrate on knowing Christ more intimately through prayer and Bible study. The more you understand His power and glory, the more humble you will be. Then you will give yourself more readily to others as Christ gave Himself to you.
the church is the only society in the world in which membership is based on the single qualification that the candidate be unworthy of membership.
