Monday, May 20, 2013

God's Plan for Dealing with Worry

by Eldon DeBoer
 
We all struggle with it from time to time. Some of us struggle with it a lot. This thing called worry. Worry involves continuing to have anxious thoughts about what is happening to us. The result is a detrimental negative mental and emotional condition.  The reason I allow worry to dominate my thoughts is because I have failed to apply the truth of God and His Word to what I am facing.  Worry happens because I lack faith in the Lord and in His Word as it should be applied to what is plaguing me.  Yes, I too struggle with worry.

George Mueller stated, “The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.” “Whatever is not of faith is sin” from Romans 14:23, is the biblical basis for Mueller’s conclusion (cp. Philippians 4:6-7).
It is humbling to recognize that until we see Jesus and are transformed into His likeness we will not be completely free of worry with no lapses from it. We succumb to the weaknesses of our sinful nature. Our faith is not yet perfect. But we may be free of worry, for a while at least, as we turn our eyes upon Jesus and trust in Him again.

Let’s consider the teaching that the Lord has provided in Philippians so that you may be free from worry.

Stop worrying because you trust in the Lord and trust in His Word.  Philippians 4:6

Philippians 4:6 starts off with the command, “Be anxious for nothing,” or “Don’t worrying about anything” (NLT). In order to heed this command we must have confidence in the Lord and His Word.

Believers who “stand firm in the Lord” know what to do with their worries (cf. Philippians 4:1). You may “Stand firm in the Lord” by“pressing on” toward the goal of knowing Christ (3:10,14) with the truth fixed firmly in your thinking that He has made you a citizen of heaven (3:20-21).

When we make knowing Christ the number one priority in life, the troubles that may cause anxiety may be viewed from His perspective from the teachings of His Word more and more.
 
Hudson Taylor, missionary to China and founder of what is presently known as the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, gave this excellent advice: "Let us give up our work, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into [God’s] hand; and then, when we have given all over to Him, there will be nothing left for us to be troubled about."

Citizens of heaven who are rejoicing in the Lord and want a vital and meaningful personal relationship with Christ know what to do with their worries (Philippians 3:1; 4:4). They place everything in God’s hands, especially their worries. And they talk to the Lord about the anxiety they are facing and its causes. They apply step two.

Talk to the Lord about what is happening as you keep in mind that the Lord will hear and respond.  You can trust in Jesus.

As a believer in Jesus you certainly should know that you can trust Him. Life may not be what you had expected or hoped for. Stuff happens, decisions are made that you wish you could back and change.  But remember, Jesus loved you enough to suffer and die in your place so that you could enjoy Him and His heaven forever. So talk to the Lord about the specifics of what is going on in your life. Pray for the Lord’s insight. Ask Him, “What principles from Your Word should be applied to what I am facing?

The Lord declared through Jeremiah, “Blessed is the man who trusts (batach) in the LORD and whose trust (mibtach) is the LORD” (17:7). Then He described what this man is like:

For he will be like a tree planted by the water,
That extends its roots by a stream
And will not fear when the heat comes;
But its leaves will be green,
And it will not be anxious in a year of drought
Nor cease to yield fruit.

Believers who keep on trusting in the Lord have stability in life and do not become filled with anxiety when their lives go through seasons of drought. When times and relationships become troublesome, they are not overcome with worry. This is addressing what is generally true of a mature believer in Christ. However, no one has perfect faith. Therefore, there may still be occasional times of anxiety. But we should understand that when we side step God's plan for dealing with worry we have failed to make the proper application of the truth to what is taking place. We are failing to trust in the Lord and His Word.

Keep talking to the Lord about the stress in your life. Is there anything He wants you to do in response to what He has placed in your path? In addition to talking to the Lord about it, maybe there are some specific things He wants you to do. Ask the Lord Jesus to help you evaluate your worries. It may be needful to seek the counsel of another believer in Christ who may be able to share some insights from the Word of God that apply to your circumstances.

Ask the Lord, “What is the root cause of my worries?” Think through what may be underneath the cause of your anxious thoughts and feelings. Maybe you will find that you have anxiety for no good reason.

Believers who faithfully renew their confidence in the Lord and His plan are able to apply His Word by His grace.

Talk to Jesus with an attitude of thankfulness because you know the Lord Jesus will work out His plan for your good in your life.
Praying “with thanksgiving” is in keeping with the commands in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-19.

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit."

A rejoicing and thankful heart is from the Lord and His grace as we remember the promise of Romans 8:28 for all who love God. 

"We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God."  (HCSB)
All the circumstances of life should be viewed from God’s perspective from divine viewpoint, as much as possible. When we are confident that the Lord will somehow bring about good through the very troubles we are facing we may be thankful as we keep on talking with Him about life as it is. 

The importance of taking in the Word of God, pondering the truth He has given to us should be obvious. When we willfully turn away from the Lord and His Word we are quenching His Spirit’s work in us.

We talk to the Lord and are thankful because we believe in Him. He has the answers to our worries. He is providentially ordering our life. A thankful attitude in the face of very difficult times is from the Lord by His grace and the ministry of His Spirit.

We can be thankful because we know the Lord always has our growth and productivity in mind (cf. John 15:7-8). We are able to be thankful by His grace when we understand that He wants us to enjoy an intimate, even better personal relationship with Him (John 14:1, 23; Ephesians 3:16-19; Revelation 3:19-20). And most times it is only by undergoing stressful times that we get closer to Him (James 1:1-6). May we view the stress that is causing the worries with an attitude of thankfulness to the Lord.

When you apply this teaching from Philippians, you’ll experience God’s peace within. The promise of Philippians 4:7 is based upon applying 4:6.



God Promises Peace   Philippians 4:7


God’s peace will guard your heart and mind. The Lord Jesus will give you emotional and mental stability by His grace.

God’s peace is not a result of your ability to work it out by yourself. This is what the phrase, “the peace of God which is beyond all understanding,” (nous) is about. God’s peace does not result from your mental abilities or psychological adjustments that you think you can conjure up on your own. God grants His peace by His grace to believers who want to know Christ more and more as they keep on applying Philippians 4:6.

All the praise should be offered up to the Lord Jesus for enabling you to stop worrying and giving you peace. When you turn your thoughts to Him and His Word, you should experience His peace within. This is the emphasis of what follows in Philippians 4:8-9:

"Moreover, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good reputation with God, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you."

When you apply the truth that the Apostle Paul taught by the Spirit, focusing on the Lord and His Word, “the God of peace will be with you.” God will give you a strong and healthy sense of well-being because you know Him and His plan for your life.

Five “don’ts” to avoid concerning your worries:

1. Don’t sweep your worries under a rug by attempting to ignore them.

Meet your worries head-on, trusting the Lord to give you the grace to face them by the application of His Word.
At this point, maybe you need something on the lighter side. For several years a woman had been having trouble getting to sleep at night because she feared burglars. One night her husband heard a noise in the house, so he went downstairs to investigate. When he got there, he did find a burglar. “Good evening,” said the man of the house. “I am pleased to see you. Come upstairs and meet my wife. She has been waiting 10 years to meet you" (William Marshall, Eternity Shut in a Span).

2. Don’t succumb to escape mechanisms.

Turning to alcohol or drugs is often caused by not dealing with anxieties from the Lord’s view that you may be experiencing. However, if your anxious thoughts do not diminish while you are seeking the Lord’s insight, it may be necessary to consult with someone who may be able to determine whether or not there is a physical problem causing the unusual level of anxiety.

3. Don’t worry about worrying. Don’t become anxious about your anxieties.
When you find yourself worrying again, thank the Lord that He has the grace solution to all your anxieties in your personal relationship with Him in understanding His Word and plan for your life.

But you may be wondering, “What do I do when I seem to “blind-sided” by anxious thoughts that tie me up in knots within?” This is what “for a while at least” in the brackets under the title of this message are about. Yes, this teaching provides for a worry free life in Philippians 4:6-7. But thinking that we can be worry free without any lapses this side of heaven is not being realistic. Everybody worries from time to time because no one has a perfect or complete faith. We have not yet been completely glorified with perfect natures. When the Holy Spirit brings to your attention that you are not applying Philippians 4:6-7 in your life confess it as sin, receive the Lord’s forgiveness, get your eyes back on Him and meditate on His Word (1 John 1:9 – 2:2; Hebrews 12:1-3). When the mental and emotional state of worry sweeps over you seemingly without notice and you find yourself fretting within, stop and reflect upon and ponder what you know to be true of Jesus Christ, what He has done for you and the wonderful relationship you may have with Him that He has made possible because He loved you so much and suffered for you.

4. Don’t worry about what may never happen.

A woman who had lived long enough to have learned some important truths about life remarked, “I’ve had a lot of trouble—most of which never happened!” She had worried about many things that had never occurred, and had come to see the total futility of her anxieties. Maybe just waiting and allowing some time to pass will alleviate the cause of your concerns.

J. Arthur Rank, an English executive, decided to do all his worrying on one day each week. He chose Wednesdays. When anything happened that gave him anxiety and annoyed his ulcer, he would write it down and put it in his worry box and forget about it until next Wednesday. The interesting thing was that on the following Wednesday when he opened his worry box, he found that most of the things that had disturbed him the past six days were already settled. It would have been useless to have worried about them.

5. Don’t confuse worry with concern.

We should be concerned about many things. But be alert for when legitimate concerns cause you to begin to fret within.
Try to imagine the task the Lord called His prophet Jeremiah to carry out. Certainly he had heartfelt concerns about what the Lord had called him to do and what he would witness. He had to tell the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem that the Lord God was going to bring judgment upon them. Because of the ongoing sinfulness of the Judeans, they would experience tremendous suffering at the hands of the Babylonians who the Lord had raised up. Jeremiah’s concern for the people he loved caused him to have deep levels of anxiety from time to time. This is especially evident by what he wrote in Lamentations. Jeremiah kept renewing his confidence in the Lord even though life was hard and certainly not what he would have chosen for himself.

May we be like Jeremiah. May we renew our trust in the Lord in the face of our concerns when we find that we have become anxious once again. How thankful we should be that the Lord Jesus will help us recover from our worries by His grace as we apply the principles from His Word.

This teaching is for believers in Christ Jesus who have placed faith in Him as their personal Savior. When you believe in Jesus Christ He will give you His Spirit so that you may stop worrying by His grace. You should know that He gives you much more in addition to freedom from worry. He gives you everlasting life with Himself forever because He suffered and died in your place on Calvary’s cross, bearing your sin in His body (John 6:47; chapters 19 – 20). He will make you free of worry forever with no lapses of trust in Him. Yes, you will have no more problems with worry and be given much more when you are perfectly transformed into His likeness and see Him face to face (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 John 3:1-3; Revelation 21:4). You will be completely free of struggles with stress. But until we see Jesus face to face and become totally like Him, we must draw upon His grace and His Spirit, seeking to apply the truth and teaching given in Philippians 4:6 so that we will experience God’s peace promised in 4:7.

Share your thoughts with me at edeboer.gmm@gmail.com.  Thanks.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Don't Live a Wasted Life by Falling from Grace


by Eldon DeBoer

A prominent concern that the Apostle Paul had for the believers of Galatia is expressed in 4:8-11:

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.
But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you. (NIV)

How could Paul have wasted his efforts on the Galatians? They had heard the true gospel and believed in Christ. They had received everlasting life by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone (cf. Galatians 3:1-5). Yet Paul feared he had “wasted [his] efforts on” them because they apparently were buying into the same false message that Peter was approving by his behavior (2:11-12. Another article, which is available upon request (edeboer.gmm@gmail.com), “Acting in Line with the Truth of the Gospel,” addresses this in detail). They were “observing” certain laws that they thought were of God and apparently were thinking that this was necessary in order to secure their righteous eternal standing with God. Before believing in Christ for justification they had been “enslaved” by “those weak and miserable principles” and now they were returning to these rules thinking they must live by them in order to secure or remain secure in a right standing with God. Therefore Paul’s concern for such believers in these verses may be summarized this way:

Do not enslave yourself to a set of rules for fear that you will lose what cannot be taken from you. To do so is to live a wasted life.

Paul feared for the Galatians because they were in danger of living wasted lives. If his teachings of the grace message were not applied, his work with them would have been “wasted . . . efforts” because of the tragic result that their lives would remain unfruitful before God. This applies to believers through the present time. For, you see, believers in Christ will live forever with God whether or not they grasp and apply the message to the Galatians. They may live a wasted life or they may walk by faith applying the law of love because of Christ’s love for them and receive eternal rewards (Galatians 2:20; 4:10; 5:1-5). Paul indicates this in greater detail in Galatians 5 where he pointedly declares,

You have become estranged from Christ [have faded away from Christ], you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. (Galatians 5:4; NKJV)

This verse sets forth the fact that those who attempt to be justified by the law have “become estranged from Christ” and “have fallen from grace.”

Some translations use words stronger than “estranged” which do not fit the larger context of this letter. The word translated “estranged” in the New King James is katargeo and may be rendered “faded away”. 

When a believer in Christ has fallen from grace by assuming he can secure his right standing with God by keeping a law he thinks is of God, the tragic result is that he has faded away from Christ in his experience, in his walk with Christ.

Believers in Christ who seek to secure their right standing with God or think that they can remain secure with him by obedience to the Law or a rule that they think is of God, “have faded away from Christ.” Their walk with Christ becomes that which is not compatible with grace because of their works orientation. If the people addressed had believed in Christ like Abraham did (Galatians 3:8ff.), they had not lost their eternal standing with God in Him, which is impossible (cf. Ephesians 1:13-14). But their relationship with Christ Jesus had been severely damaged. Believers in Christ who continue to try to “be justified by law” cannot have a meaningful and intimate personal relationship with Jesus. A grace oriented, meaningful relationship with the Savior in this life on earth is maintained only as a believer walks with Him by faith, obeying Him out of gratitude for having been completely justified by faith (Galatians 2:16-20; cf. Colossians 2:6-7).

By seeking to secure their right standing with God for eternity by obeying a set of rules, believers have “fallen from grace” in their experience with Christ. They no longer trust in Christ Jesus alone to provide their justification. Since they are seeking to be “justified by law” they have “fallen from grace” from the standpoint of their relationship with Christ in time. Instead of drawing strength and power from the Lord Jesus as they walk with Him by faith like Paul did (Galatians 2:20), they seek to be secure in their relationship with Him by obeying “rules and regulations” (4:9-11). Those who seek to secure a right standing with God in this way have become “burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (5:1). They have once again become enslaved to the law and know little or nothing of the freedom they could have in Christ. Therefore they have “fallen from grace” in their relationship with Christ Jesus here and now in time. Said another way, they have fallen out of favor with Christ in this life as they keep striving to be justified before Him by their obedience.

A Wasted Life is a Life that Has “Fallen from Grace” Galatians 5:13-24
There are two possible tragedies presented in Galatians that result from “falling from grace.”
1. Those who have fallen from grace live in danger of having a wasted fruitless life.
2. Those who have fallen from grace live in danger of leading others into a wasted fruitless life.
Believers who “attempt to be justified by law” do not communicate the grace message by the way they live their life and certainly cause confusion by what they communicate verbally to explain their behavior. Therefore they are ineffective as true ambassadors for the clear message of God's grace in Christ Jesus.

To whom does Galatians 5:4 apply?
It applied to believers in Antioch who were buying into the message of “the party of the circumcision.”
It also applied to the believers of the churches in the region of Galatia to whom Paul was writing who also had become confused by their false teachings.

Whenever believers in Christ attempt to secure their righteous standing with God (to be “justified by law”) by their obedience to any rule or rules, they have “fallen from grace,” they have faded from Christ. This does not mean they have lost their eternal standing with God, but that their life in relationship to Christ in time here on earth is no longer grace-based. They fall from grace in practice but not from their position in Christ.

Peter had fallen from grace in practice, but not in position.
To a limited extent Galatians 5:4 may have been applied to Peter (2:11-15). The application is limited because Paul does not explicitly state that Peter actually bought into the false message of the legalistic Jews. Peter feared them and therefore he had fallen from grace by what he communicated by his behavior. He had fallen from grace in practice, while remaining in Christ positionally for all eternity.
While this letter to the Galatians does not explicitly state that Peter himself was trying to be “justified by law” it clearly is implied in chapter 2 that his behavior would have communicated that he had sided with those those who were communicating this false teaching.

Believers Who Are Free to Have a Fruitful Life by the Spirit
In contrast to those who have fallen from grace, those who are of Christ walk by the Spirit of God by faith in love and bear the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). They also are enabled by the Spirit to have victory over sin in their life:

And those who are Christ's (who have not “become estranged” from Him as stated in 5:4) have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:24).

Believers have the wonderful gift of the Spirit and are thereby able to put to death the sinful flesh and manifest the fruit of the Spirit. This is what should to be characteristic of their lives.

In contrast to those who walk by the Spirit, are those who are guilty of the sins from the sin list in Galatians 5:19-21. Believers who have faded from Christ may be found guilty of these sins:
  • Contentions/enmities/antagonistic
  • Jealousies/envy
  • selfish ambitions/selfishness
  • dissensions/party spirit
  • heresies/factions/disagreements
  • sexual sins
  • idolatry
  • sorcery
  • drunkenness
  • orgies/carousing
Some believers often question the eternal salvation of people guilty of sins they consider to be particularly “gross” that are included in this list. The fact of the matter is that their behavior also falls in line with living according to the sinful passions of the flesh if they are guilty of practicing any of these sins. As they themselves attempt to secure a right standing with God by keeping the Law or a law that they assume might prove that they are justified, when they might become guilty of say, "selfish ambitions," they are no better off than someone guilty of "orgies/carousing" before God.

What God desires is that believers walk by the Spirit so that they will have an inheritance in His kingdom. Believers who keep on living by the fleshly sinful nature will have little or no inheritance in Christ's kingdom. They will have lived wasted lives. This includes those who think that they must prove that they have been justified by keeping a set of standards while they themselves remain guilty of what they would consider to be lesser sins.

Conclusion
A life lived in slavery to the law to attempt to secure or retain a right standing with God is anathema (under a curse). Do not waste your life and the lives of others by enslaving yourself to laws of God for fear that you will lose what cannot be taken from you.

Believers in Christ will live forever with God whether or not they grasp and apply the message to the Galatians. They may live a wasted life by falling from grace or they may walk by faith applying the law of the love of Christ because of His love for them (Galatians 2:20; 4:10; 5:1-5; cp. 1 John 4:19).