Don’t Worry
by pastor ~ February 14th, 2009For Christians, worry is to be disobedient and unfaithful to God. Nothing in our lives, whether it be internal or external, justifies our being worrisome when God is our Master. What worry does is distrust the promise and providence of God. In Matthew 6, which is our memory text for our church right now, in v. 25 Jesus commands us not to worry. The tense of the command in the Greek includes the idea of stopping what is already being done. We are to stop worrying and never start again.
The English term “worry” comes from an old German word meaning “to strangle,” or “to choke.” Worry does that—it strangles us mentally, causing physical affliction. Usually we worry about something that is small, but the worry causes great damage, much larger than the small thing could cause that we’ve worried about. It has been said that worry is a thin stream of fear that trickles through the mind that, when encouraged, will cut a channel so wide that all other thoughts will be drained out.
Would you categorize yourself as a worrier? If you do worry, what has driven you to choose that over trust in God? If you are worrying, you should stop now, because you have good reasons to be content and Jesus gives some of those in Matthew 6. Contentment, not worry, should be the believer’s state of mind, like was the Apostle Paul’s as we read in Philippians 4:11-12. He had learned to be content in whatever state He was in. He found contentment, like all Christians will—in God.