Stressed Out Quotes

“The Bible doesn’t miraculously make everything better simply by reading it. The Bible is meant to be studied, believed, and applied. As we do that, the Holy Spirit progressively changes us into the image of the Son. Do not be discouraged if your anxiety doesn’t immediately disappear”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“Whatever the reason, if we don’t read the Bible and see God’s love for sinners, we miss one of the greatest truths in the Bible. To be clear, the Bible is about one thing and one thing only: the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. From Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, the Bible relentlessly points to the Cross. God sent His Son to die for sinners to demonstrate His mercy, grace, and loving-kindness. Everything in this universe exists to serve Him and bring Him glory. However, if we overlook God’s love for us as we read the Bible, we miss the very thing He is trying to demonstrate. We also miss a lot of comfort, security, hope, and joy. It is easy to fall into one of two ditches when we read about God’s love. We can focus only on how much He loves us and conclude the universe exists for us. Unfortunately, we can fall into the other ditch of forgetting that God really does love us and we can become rather despondent. In order to appreciate God’s true love for us and remain humble, we must read our Bibles with balance.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“We are born in sin. When we are born again, God changes our hearts and desires. More than that, He actually changes us into His image. . . . since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him (Colossians 3:9–10). How does God change us to be like Him? By giving us true knowledge. Where is true knowledge found? The Bible.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“Difficult circumstances should not cause us to be anxious, they should cause us to trust God more.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“You might think your life is a mess right now, but God doesn’t. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified (Romans 8:28–30). The world wants one thing for you; God wants another. z The world offers you finer wine; God wants you to act like His Son. z The world offers you a bigger house; God wants you to think like His Son. z The world offers you a fancier wardrobe; God wants you to be clothed in the righteousness of His Son. The world offers things that are relatively easy to obtain. God offers you profound things that require more effort than online shopping. The world wants you to conform to its image. God wants you to be transformed to think and act the way human beings were created to act: like image bearers of Almighty God. To accomplish this, He is causing all things to work together for your good.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“Our God is not mystical. God doesn’t sprinkle fairy dust on us to calm us down when we are anxious. God is a cognitive God who works in us through our brains. His ordained means to accomplish that is the Holy Spirit–inspired Word.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“The Holy Spirit comforts you when He teaches you all things. What are “all things” that He wants to teach you? All of the things written in the Word (2 Timothy 3:16–17; Psalm 119:65–68). This makes perfect sense because the Holy Spirit Himself inspired the Word (2 Peter 1:21).”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“As we read His Word, we have to be taking our own theological temperature. z If our study of God is not producing a change in thinking, acting, and feeling, then we are not studying right. z If our study of God is not leading us to increasing trust, then we are merely storing knowledge. z If our study of God isn’t leading us to worship, then we are merely amassing data. z If our study of God isn’t causing us to trust Him more and fear man less, then we are merely becoming theologians. But if you read God’s Word, believe it, and apply it, your thinking will be changed and your heart will soar.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“Jesus Jesus never sighed, “I am exhausted from walking the floors last night. I am so stressed.” Jesus was fully in control of His emotions and He has the ability to help you get your emotions under His control too. The supreme source of peace is found when you read about the Prince of Peace. z If you want to be comforted when the waters of life seem to be overtaking you, then watch Jesus lift Peter out of the water when he began to doubt and sink (Matthew 14:28–33). z If you want to know if your God cares about your children, watch Jesus tenderly bless babies who were brought to Him (Luke 18:15–16). z If you want to know if God can heal you, watch Jesus heal everyone who came to Him (Matthew 9:35–36). z If you want to know if God can provide for you, watch Jesus feed thousands of men, women, and children (Matthew 14:13–21). z If you want to know if your sins can be forgiven, watch Jesus take the beatings and hang on the Cross you deserve (Matthew 27:33–55). The next time you fret about the future, look into the past and study Jesus; the One who stilled the waters can still your soul. And as you do this, something supernatural is going to happen to you. When you study your Savior, you will not only be comforted, but you will actually be changed. The more you read about Jesus, the more you will become like Him. While God desires to soothe your jangled nerves as you read about His Son, He is far more interested in changing you to have the emotions of His beloved Son.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“When your emotions need to be calmed, soothed, energized, or excited, open up the book that the God of all comfort wrote to comfort you, the Psalms.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“God literally parted a Red Sea for His glory and so you could be saved. When you read that God provided manna in the wilderness for the Jews to survive, He did that so His Messiah would come out of a holy people. But He also performed that miracle so you could have your sins forgiven by that Messiah. Don’t fall into a ditch thinking that God exists to serve you, but don’t fall into the other ditch that says that God does not genuinely care about you. God does everything for His glory, but don’t forget that God loves you so much that He also organizes every single event in the universe so you can know Him and be saved by Him.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“While there are many moral lessons in the Bible, watch out for the trap of moralism. God still commands Christians to obey, but if we forget the motivation for our good behavior, then we will quickly become Pharisees and not Christians.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“Good interpretive skills are needed to make sure we don’t rely on promises that were not given to us. Read the Promises for You with Faith When we read promises that are intended for New Testament saints, we too easily think they are for other Christians, but certainly not us. When God promises that He “will never leave you or forsake you,” He means it. Trust Him. Believe that God means what He says and He never reneges (James 1:17).”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“Charles Hodge once wrote, “The Bible is so simple that small children can understand it, and it is so profound that studies by the wisest theologians will never exhaust its riches.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“These four verses tell us what God wants to do with us. He doesn’t want to simply eliminate your anxious thoughts: He wants to remake you. Fix you. Change you. Improve you. Conform you into His very image. God does not just zap you and change you; God’s Holy Spirit changes you as you read His Holy Spirit–inspired Word. Want change? Read your Bible. And read it right! Unfortunately, many people read the Bible wrong and never find the comfort they seek.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18). When you and I stare into the face of Jesus by studying His words, we are actually changed “from glory to glory.” We progressively become like the object we are studying.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“The formula is clear: if you want peace, you must read the Bible to acquire knowledge. Hearing from God through His Word is crucial if we are going to have our brains informed by truth.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“The longest chapter in the Bible touts the Scriptures as being a soothing balm for the Psalmist’s troubled emotions. He doesn’t reveal what is rocking his boat, but the author of Psalm 119 is clearly under pressure. Repeatedly, the Psalmist says that his soul is “crushed with longing” (vs. 20), and that he is being treated poorly by somebody (vs. 22). So how does the Psalmist find comfort? You guessed it — from the Word of God. My soul weeps because of grief; strengthen me according to Your word (Psalm 119:28). That theme is repeated for 176 verses. Whatever is getting the Psalmist’s goat, he makes it clear that there is only one solution for his situation; the Word of God.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“When you read the inspired word of God, you are actually receiving a message directly from God to you. If getting texts makes you happy, reading your Bible should thrill your soul. When you crack open your Bible, you are reading the very words of God. It doesn’t matter if the ink is red or black, you are reading the inspired, infallible, inerrant, sufficient word of God. Whoa.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“That is the One God wants to conform you to. Can you imagine how it would feel to be more like Jesus? If you would like to be more like Him, then study Jesus in the Word and you will become like Him.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“What you believe and how much you believe it is the key to victorious Christian living.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“When we fail to heed this command, we demonstrate we have little faith in Him because we are the idol of our own lives. And that is when big anxiety kicks in. Anxiety says, “I’ve got this. I am trusting myself.” God says, “I’ve got this. Trust me.” When you submit to God and allow Him to reign in your life, you cannot descend into anxiety. Here is how that works: z You read, study, and ponder God’s Word. z Your Bible teaches you to do what you can do to address the situation but trust God for the outcome. z Something challenging, hard or scary happens. z You remember that God is sovereignly controlling every single detail of your life. z You are calm in the storm. z The storm rages harder and you begin to worry, but you remind yourself that there is no need to be anxious because your King has all things under His sovereign control. z You are acting like the obedient servant whom God loves as He reigns in your life. z You have peace knowing that God works all things for your good and His glory. Perhaps you think this is too simple. Well, perhaps you have simply made your anxiety issue more complex than it needs to be.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“How quickly the disciples, and we, forget God’s miraculous provision for us. Day after day He provides our daily bread, but on the only day our cupboards are bare, we fret. O we of little faith.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“If you believe that your omnipotent God is for you and nothing can befall you that is not from His beneficent hand, then you would not be anxious. When you are worried, you are simply not trusting your God.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“All Things Working for Good Dr. Octavius Winslow It is palpably clear and emphatically true that all that occurs in the Lord’s government of His people conspires for, and works out, and results in, their highest happiness, their greatest good. The gloomiest and most painful circumstances in the history of the child of God, without a solitary exception, are all conspiring, and all working together, for his real and permanent good. The painful and inexplicable events, which at the present moment may be thickening and deepening around your path, are but so many problems in God’s government, which He is working out to their certain, satisfactory, and happy results. All things under the government of an infinitely great, all wise, righteous, and beneficent Lord God, work together for good. What that good may be, the shape it may assume, the complexion it may wear, the end to which it may be subservient, we cannot tell. To our dim view it may appear an evil, but to God’s far seeing eye it is a positive good. Oh, truth most divine! Oh, words most consolatory! Beloved of God, all these things are for you! Do not be afraid! Will it not be a good, if your present adversity results in . . . the dethronement of some worshiped idol; in the endearing of Christ to your soul; in the closer conformity of your mind to God’s image; in the purification of your heart; in your more thorough fitness for heaven? Will it not be a real good if it ends with: a revival of God’s work within you; a stirring you up to more prayer; in enlarging your heart to all that love the same Savior; in stimulating you to increased activity . . . for the conversion of sinners, for the spreading of the truth, and for the glory of God? Oh yes! good, real good, permanent good must result from all the Divine events in your history. In a little while; oh, how soon! You shall pass away from earth to heaven, and in its clearer, calmer light you shall read the truth, often read with tears before, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.”1”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“God does not give us the life we dream of; God gives us the life we need in order to be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“God-given emotions can be enjoyed rightly or abused sinfully. It is up to us to make sure we act like God by having the right emotion at the right time for the right reason. And know this, when you cross the line into sinfully anxious, then God has already forgiven you and He stands ready to help you grow and not think like that again. Why? Because you have a sympathetic high priest who wants to fix your thinking so you can have the same joy that He has (John 15:11).”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety

“There is a fine line between sinful anxiety and planning for the future. We can and should prepare for the future; we just can’t sin as we do so. To be sure, there is much that can cause anxiety these days, but Christians are called to fear not (Luke 12:23). z We are commanded to not be anxious about the future (John 14:1). z We are called to have our emotions under control (Galatians 5:22–23). z We are warned that anxiety about the future is an insult to God (Matthew 5:25–39). While we might be comforted by the fact that every human being on earth has committed the sin of anxiety, that does not let us off the hook. We are accountable for our emotions. Fear of the future is common, but it is not acceptable. That is why you must be aware of which feeling you are actually having. If you are sad because of sin, death, or disaster, that is fine. If you are sad because you are worried about tomorrow, that is not fine.”
― Todd Friel, Stressed Out: A Practical, Biblical Approach to Anxiety