Sermon Central
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Giving Up Your Anxious Days
Contributed by David Dewitt on May 4, 2004 (message contributor)
Summary: This is a devotional that i wrote for the church newsletter
Giving up Your Anxious Days
1 Peter 5:7
Devotional
Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7
The Greek understanding of anxiety was to have a divided mind or to have anxious interest. The concept of a divided mind is to lose focus or to attempt to focus on too many things
Webster defines anxiety as a painful or apprehensive uneasiness of mind usually over an anticipated or impending situation or a strong fearful concern
The average person’s anxiety is about…
40% on things that will never happen
30% on things that have happened in the past and cannot be changed
12% on criticism of others that are usually untrue
8% on real problems that will have to be faced
The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety - George Mueller
Worry pulls tomorrow’s clouds over today’s sunshine – Charles R. Swindoll
Worry is wasting today’s time to clutter up tomorrow’s opportunities with yesterday’s troubles
Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow – Swedish Proverb
Anxiety does nothing of benefit for our lives and in fact it is detrimental to our lives. Anxiety steals our joy. Anxiety steals our contentment. Anxiety steals our confidence. Anxiety steals our ability to trust God
Do you really trust God when life gets anxious?
Peter says to cast all of our anxiety on God. Literally this means that we are to throw every care and every concern that we have to God. You can throw it all to God because He is always ready to receive.
Why should we throw our anxiety to God?
God cared enough about you to send Jesus to earth, sacrifice Jesus on the cross for your sins and then raise Him to new life from the tomb to defeat death. If He cares this much, how can we think that out daily lives are without His care as well? God is worthy of our trust; from the big areas of our lives down to the smallest aspects of our daily routine. God is able to take care of every single aspect of life and we still trust ourselves more than we trust Him.
Do you really trust God when life gets anxious?
