Fear, worry, stress, distress, and anxiety, are common words in our culture...and unfortunately all too common in our experience. We're living in an age that is filled with so much tension and so much pressure.
Have you ever noticed how every day we are force-fed a steady diet of anxiety-producing information? We can't escape it - whether it is on a global, national, or a personal scale.
All of us have lives filled with things which can cause distress...and it is something we must learn to deal with.
The good news is this: We can win over worry! As a matter of fact it is absolutely essential that we not become victims of worry, but victors over worry through Jesus Christ.
As believers in Jesus Christ, you and I have resources... we have strength that no one else has outside of Christ. In fact, our Lord knew how worry can dominate our lives, so He spoke specifically to those things that can produce panic instead of peace for us.
His challenge is found in Matthew 6 beginning in verse 25:
"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."
Do you see it? Jesus said it over and over again. "Do not worry... do not worry." And yet perhaps among the people of God this is the most common sin of all.
Most Christians would say, "Well, I don't participate in the sins of dissipation. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't chew. I don't go with girls who do." And yet you are a worrier and you are troubled and tense and nervous and anxious and wringing your hands and worrying about yesterday, today and tomorrow.
