The Cure for Anxiety

“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; not for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.” -Matthew 6:25-29,
“Do not worry then, saying, “what will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear for clothing?” For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” -Matthew 6:31-34

I don’t know about you, but I am prone to thinking about the future. Part of my personality is strategy so I am always running scenarios in my head. If I cannot find a best scenario, I start to feel like Jesus is telling me the above. “Don’t worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.” In attempting to plan sometimes we go overboard, and our nerves go with it. Our society has anxiety issues; Prozac and Zoloft sell more than gumdrops, and lollipops. How much of this could be healed if we had faith that God is watching our backs. The birds don’t plant anything to eat, they don’t really work at all, but God feeds them.
We sometimes lose sight of what we need, and Satan convinces us that everything we want is what we need. When our need becomes our want, we are more prone to worrying. Because it is difficult to acquire all we want, even assuming that those wants are healthy and realistic.

What this means for our worship.
To Worship God involves trusting him, knowing he will provide for us. The Jews would call him Jehovah-Jireh, the provider. If we know he will provide us with our needs, our anxiety dissipates. When Moses was on mount Sinai receiving the law, God sustained him for forty days and nights. Moses didn’t need to spend any time or thought on food or even sleep. God sustained him completely. Read the book of Exodus if that sounds interesting to you, it is a colorful majestic book.
All this to say we should not bring worry to worship, if anything we should let go of our anxiety and hold onto God’s presence.
We don’t want to let go of everything and be empty when we worship, we need that passion that desire and heart for God. Let go of distractions yes, hold on to the Good.

What makes you anxious? Are there any wants that have become needs in your mind? Do you bring worry to your worship of God?

Living Sacrafice

“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” –Romans 12:1 (NASV)

This verse has some serious implications on our lives as Christians. Not only is this a foreign idea to our culture, it requires a totally different way of living. In order for us to be considered a holy sacrifice and be acceptable by a Holy God we have to be the following things: Holy, which is set apart, sanctified, righteous in God’s eyes, without blemish, or defect.
Leviticus 6:6 says, “Then he shall bring to the priest his guilt offering to the Lord, a ram without defect from the flock.”
Leviticus 2:1 says, “Now when anyone presents a grain offering as an offering to the Lord, his offering shall be of fine flower.”
Leviticus is full of these examples, without defect, fine or finest, choice of the flock/herd. We are supposed to live our lives in this way, a sacrifice Holy and acceptable to God. As the best of all our people, not to incite competition, instead that we should love God so much to worship him in this way.

What this means for our worship?
This is how we are supposed to live, as a sacrifice, which is our service of worship. We are supposed to live, present our bodies to God as Holy sacrifices, that is our service of worship, wow! Whichever way I say it, the weight of this verse remains. How does this affect what we eat, anything we put in our bodies, or on our bodies if our bodies are to be a living sacrifice to God? A sacrifice is given, the bible also says, “For I am not my own I was bought at a high price” (that price being Jesus the ultimate sacrifice.) For those things we put in our body or our minds, television, games, emotions or anything we put in our hearts. Those things should also be acceptable to God, if we are living a life of worship, as a sacrifice.
This in conjunction with our bodies being temples of the Holy Spirit makes us think twice about how we are living. Our decisions, how we spend our time, and what we do with our bodies. This is something I wrestle with, so I am preaching to the choir.

Recommended listening: “Everything Glorious” by David Crowder Band

Light of Man

John 1:4-5 “In him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend (or overpower) it.”

The first three verses of John talk about the Word being with God in the beginning and everything being made through him, the Word representing Jesus. I talked about this last week. What is incredible is the connection made here. Jesus is the word and in him is life, and the light. This is somewhat mysterious to our understanding. Yet there is power in this connection “the darkness did not comprehend (or overpower) it.” The darkness cannot comprehend or overpower the light. By calling upon the Word of God, we have life, and light is on our side.
The darkness cannot overcome the light think about it.
When was the last time you watched a sunrise, flipped on a light switch, or gazed at a star, which is an unconceivable distance away yet its light reaches us just the same. Darkness has got nothing on light. Darkness cannot withhold light, can’t overpower it, and can’t even slow it down.
There is a recent scientific study conducted that revealed human beings emit light. Through out the day the levels varied, peaking in the afternoon. The most focused place emitting light is our faces. The reminds me of Moses after being on the mountain with God receiving the law, and his face shone with light because of speaking with God. Now we know everyone emits light, Moses was just a little brighter than us.

What does this mean for our Worship?
If Jesus is the Word, the Life, and in him is Light, how bright should we be? Bible verses like these come to mind, “Let your light shine before all men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven.” If our faces emit light more than the rest of our bodies, is that because we speak out of them? Listen out of them; receive light into our eyes by them?
Here is a thought, instead of using the term light year to measure the distance light travels in one year. We could use it to measure how much darkness has been overcome by light in a given year. How many light years do you want to be a part of? With the Word of God, the Truth we can overcome the darkness.

Power, to the Word, in the Word, is the Word

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being.” John 1:1-3

There is great power in the Word of God, what is often not mentioned when God’s powerful word is spoken of id this; as written in the book of John “the Word” is Jesus. If you replace “the Word” with Jesus in John 1:1-3 there is no denying the powerful implications. This is part of the mystery of the trinity.

Lets go back to the beginning, Genesis 1:3, “Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.” Hold on just on second, God said. God spoke with words… and light came into being, he then goes on to separate the light from the darkness. With words God created the heavens and the earth, created light, wow! If Jesus is the Word, and all things were made through him, by God. That makes me think twice about something we do every day, speak, with words.

We tend to underestimate the power of our words, they can bless and curse, and as Christians our words have God’s power behind them. Listen to what Jesus says to Peter in the book of Matthew 16:19b, “Whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” Jesus repeats this in Matthew 18:18, not specifically to Peter but to the disciples. Authority is in our words, with the Holy Spirit living inside of us. Jesus is saying here, that what we say in his name, those words once said, are backed by Him. The words are backed by Jesus the authority on words, after all he is “the Word.” All things came into being through Him, light, the cosmos, us… power in the word.

What this means for our worship?

If we are to worship God in spirit and in truth we have to speak truth. We must choose our words carefully, they carry weight, they can curse and bless. Proverbs 15:2 says, “The tongue of the wise makes knowledge acceptable (or good), But the mouth of fools spouts folly.” We need to be careful what we say, and only speak truth. We must refrain from spouting folly, or blabbering we might call it. So that when we speak people listen, and care about the words we speak. After all “Let there be light,” was short and sweet and look what that did.

Let me know what you think? This hits home for me, how about you?

Additional random tid bit: Notice it was Genesis 1:3, and John 1:1-3, crazy