Why I don't need to worry or be anxious about anything:
1. Deuteronomy 8:3 "He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord."
- God has a way of taking his people to the places where it looks hopeless, scary, and leaves us feeling like their is no way out of whatever situation we face. That is the exact place God wants us to be. He continually did this in scripture (Wilderness-manna, Crossing the Red Sea, Calming the storm ) How will this work, will we ever be okay, their is no way out...
- God wants our confidence to rest in him and him alone and this is the way that he goes about doing this. If we were able to somehow offer up our plan, or our own way out, then we would take the glory and God would receive none. He is jealous and not only deserves, but wants all the glory and will stop at nothing to make sure this happens in our lives.
2. 2 Corinthians 1:9 ( Paul speaking about hardships that were far beyond his ability to endure, "so that we despaired even of life" )"This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead" Paul was delivered from these hardships, but he did not assume that God guaranteed such deliverance in the future.
3. There is no private ownership in the kingdom. All is from God and all belongs to God. We are not the owners of our material stuff; we are stewards, but not owners. Owners are the ones who do all the worrying; stewards simply listen to the owner's desires and work to implement them. Owners are responsible for the outcome; stewards strive to be faithful.
- Steward-a person employed to manage another's property, a person who's responsibility is to take care of something.
- I struggle to view all as God's, that he is the owner of all of my things (talents, money, possessions, job, life, wife, children, time etc....) I tend to think of it as mine but he gets to tell me what to do with it. There in lies the problems, the tantrums, the anger, the frustration, the anxiety, the fear of doing something wrong, etc.....
- This being said, we have been given all things (paul saying having begun in the spirit are you perfecting yourself by your works) since we have been given the kingdom rather than earned it, humility and generosity should be our natural responses.
4. Anxiety asks for more information so it can be prepared for the coming apocalypse. It also asks for more information so it can manage the world apart from God.
- Sometimes we are anxious about the future because there is no larger agenda that occupies us in the present. Love, however, is an expansive agenda.
- Trying to be prepared for the worst is me playing God, or trying to put myself in his position to handle it on my own apart from him. Trying to be self reliant. I don't like to be in need.
- Self Reliance: reliance on one's own powers and resources rather than those of others.
- Your future includes manna. It will come. There is no sense in devising future scenarios now because God will do more than you anticipate. When you understand God's plan to give future grace, you have access to what is arguably God's most potent salvo against worry and fear.
5. A withholding lifestyle means that we don't believe that there will be manna tomorrow. We don't believe we will be given enough grace.
- Then the Lord said to Moses, "Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not."
- Are you worried about the future? You are looking at tomorrow as if it was a final exam and you haven't yet taken the class. Of course you panic at the thought. But you haven't considered that you will go through the class before you have to take the final. You will be given all the grace you need when you need it.
- According to this verse God has planed my days even before I was. He was there and say with his own eyes my unformed substance, my days are written, everyone of them (showing the emphasis of detail to the days of my life). He formed days for me, specifically for me. I don't know. I couldn't tell you what the next few seconds will bring, yet he is already in tomorrow. In him should I trust.
- God asks me to live by faith in this, in him, his son Jesus, and his promises. Romans 1:17
- Although it feels wrong, wired, and un-American to be in need to trust another's strength, trust in anothers way and work, it's the way God designed it to be. Romans 4:3-5
- If there was another way it would lead to me gaining glory and feeling like I had something to do with it. Romans 4:16
- Our line our heritage from father Abraham and on down the generations have been encouraged to do the same thing, so that Abraham would be able to be "fully convinced" that what God said would happen, would happen. Romans 4:20-25
- We can not boast. What do you have that you were not given? Our very existance: did you ask to be born. Do you remember to breath. All things are from the Lord our creator. 1 Corinthians 4:6-7
- We don't even know what tomorrow will bring. Why do we talk in such a way that it is promised. Even worrying about tomorrow shows how much pride we have...we think that we will have what we aren't in control over. James 4:13-17
