A great inspirational maxim says, “Worry
is faith in the negative . . . wasting today’s time to clutter up tomorrow’s
opportunities with yesterday’s troubles.”
In Philippians 4:6, the Apostle Paul
says, "Be careful for nothing.”
Of this
counsel, Bible scholar C.R. Stam once wrote, “In our
modern day language we would say, ‘Don't worry about anything.’ The Greek word
behind the term ‘careful’ here is merimnao, which means to pull in
different directions, to distract.
“This is exactly what worry will do to
you—it will tear you apart both emotionally and physically. It can be one of
the leading causes of ulcers, which is something else to worry about!
“Worry
always dwells on the future in regard to what may or may not happen. . .Worry
is a sin! As we have seen, it focuses on the future, which is divine ground. It
has been correctly said, ‘Worry is assuming more responsibility than God
intended you to have.’ ”
*****
In
Luke 12: 4-5, Jesus Christ advised, “And I say unto you my friends, Be not
afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But
I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed
hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him."
“Obviously
killing your body does not equal killing you. That’s a great statement
demonstrating something about the nature of man. It shows someone can kill your body and yet you can do something to your
soul that’s still there.
“Jesus
Christ reasons, ‘Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of
them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all
numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.
“I once
typed into Google the key words ‘hairs on your head’ and learned that an
average blonde person has 145,000 hairs on the head, a brunette has 120,000 and
a red head has 90,000.
“So
if you’ve got all those hairs on your head, the Father hasn’t forgotten you. You’re
more valuable than a bunch of birds.
“Christ
in Luke 12:8: ‘Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him
shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God.’
“Jesus
said not only did the Father not forget, but you know what’s going to happen if
you acknowledge the Son? He’ll acknowledge you and He won’t forget you either.
“In
verses 9 and 10, Christ continues, ‘But he that denieth me before men shall be
denied before the angels of God. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven
him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be
forgiven.’
“What’s
unfortunate is how many preachers take Luke 12:8-10 out of context to destroy a
Believer’s confidence in eternal security, all because they’re unwilling to
recognize the verses are written to the nation Israel with the Tribulation in
view, not to members of the Body of Christ in today’s dispensation of grace.
“Whole
generations of people have been raised believing that the way you get saved is
to walk an aisle and make a public confession. This goes back to men like
Charles Finney and then D.L. Moody. The idea is to have every head bowed and
every eye closed tonight and the organ softly playing ‘Just as I am.’ You need
to ‘step out for Jesus’ and walk the aisle. The whole thing becomes about
courage—it’s not faith. It’s, ‘Man, I’ve got guts!’
“To
have faith, you have to have absolute personal privacy. Faith is a personal
matter, and if I invade your privacy and space with psychological techniques to
try to force you to do something I want you to do, and I force you to do it,
you didn’t really do it out of the choice of your will.
*****
“There are three times in connection with the birth of the Lord Jesus
Christ that the expression ‘fear not’ occurs. The first one is said to Joseph
by an angel, who comforts him in a dream with, ‘Joseph, thou son of David, fear
not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of
the Holy Ghost.’
“Mary
was Joseph’s intended wife, it’s just that their commitment hadn’t been consummated
yet, and the fact she was ‘found with child’ was a crime punishable by stoning
death by Israeli law.
“Now,
you got to think about Joseph’s perspective in all of this. Joseph’s got this
young girl, he’s looking forward to marrying her. Everybody knows they’ve
already gone through the formalities (the announcements and the invitations are
out) but she comes up pregnant and Joseph’s in the dark about why. He doesn’t
have ANY idea what’s happened. He doesn’t know HOW she got pregnant.
“I
don’t know about you, but my mind kind of imagines things like that. I sit
around sometimes thinking about these verses. You can just see Joseph
wondering, ‘Why did something like this happen?!’
“He’s
having to deal with the hurt of the betrayal and the disillusionment that would
come from this kind of thing. You can just see him sitting there trying to
figure out exactly how to get out of the mess that Mary’s gotten him into. You
can see his heart all filled with turmoil. ‘How am I gonna fix this mess?! How
are we ever going to get beyond this?!’
“There’s
Joseph in this impossible situation. The things he’s thinking about are testing
his mettle; his goodness. And in the midst of all that, an angel of the Lord
appeared to him in his sleep.
“Suddenly
God broke into Joseph’s predicament and the explanation He gave him was a
doozie! If you think it’s unbelievable that an angel would show up, that kind
of message from an angel even sounds stranger! Here’s something that’s never
happened before!
“He’s told,
“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he
shall save his people from their sins.’ It even gets stranger but then the
angel gives Joseph something he can hang onto: ‘Behold, a virgin shall be with
child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,
which being interpreted is, God with us.’ (Matthew 1:23)
“You
see what that angel really did for Joseph was he said, ‘Here’s a verse of
Scripture God’s fulfilling in YOUR life right now! You don’t need to be
afraid! I know it’s outrageous! Here’s what God’s Word says though.’
“The
message was ‘fear not for God said.’ The message is you can hang your life on
God’s Word and you’re never going to get rid of fear in your life except that
way.
*****
“The other two times the angel-sent encouragement of ‘fear not’
shows up in relationship to the birth of Christ is in Luke 1:13 (‘But the angel
said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife
Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John) and in Luke
1:30 (‘And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour
with God.’)
“Now, if you think Joseph was little upset, can you imagine how
shocked Mary must have been when the angel Gabriel started talking to her!
“By
the way, Luke was a medical doctor, so the specificity of terminology here is
not being used casually. It’s being used very specific with precise meanings.
Luke starts out his book saying, ‘I’m a good historian.’
“There’s
this little thing he writes in Chapter 2 that I’ve always been touched by. Luke
says, ‘But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in
her heart.’
“I
think, here’s a little mother who, when Luke met her, recounts the nativity and
the birth of the child, and there’s certain things she never told anybody
else. She just kept them hid and thought about them and pondered them in her
heart.
“Mary shared with Luke what was going on in her mind. I have a
hard time putting myself in her situation. The questions this little girl must have had at the time!
“She’s
told, ‘Hey Mary, you’re going to be the mother of the Messiah!’ Whoa! I mean,
what a privilege, but what a shock! Mary asked the logical question: ‘How shall
this be, seeing as how I know not a man?!’
“In
the presence of something that’s obviously going to be supernatural and can’t
be understood in human terms, you can just imagine . . . but verse
37 is the answer: ‘For with God nothing shall be impossible.’
“Mary’s
fear turned to faith in what God’s Word said. So Mary, like Joseph, trusted
God’s Word. When it says she found ‘favor with God,’ that’s undeserved favor.
That’s a definition of grace: ‘Mary you’ve got nothing to be afraid of; you are
perfectly loved.’
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