For years I have wrestled with the sin of Anxiety. Ugh! I hate it! When you are in bondage to fear and worry life is NO FUN and you cause life for many of those around you no fun either. ( as I am sure that is the case with most sin) As we were traveling to Orange Beach this weekend I begin to panic and become very fearful. It always happen when I travel. I am so afraid of car accidents. I hate traveling over bridges because I cant swim.( but I love going to the beach...crazy, I know) The Lord through a sermon years ago convicted me and thats when I begin to understand and accept that fear, worry and or anxiety was a sin. The bible says...
Matthew 6- "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
Just that verse alone teaches you that it is sinful to be fearful. I want this area in my life to be gone, but as I am learning, it wont leave without a fight..and if I have not learned anything about being a christian one of the things I know is GODLINESS has to be practiced over and over and over again. God knows what we need, he Sovereignly gave me a opportunity to be in a relationship with him, he left me with all that I needed to complete the task of this calling. In my email today I received this. I can just cry. God hears. He knows my struggles. I was convicted after reading that post because it meant that I still have yet to come close to really know WHO THIS GOD IS I serve. One of the reasons why I am fearful is because of my lack of knowledge about Jesus. DO I really know God, or do I just know about him? I have so much to learn!! God in his goodness still gave me something to be encouraged about and that is the simple fact that this journey is not over, there is still more pursuing Jesus. His sooo inexhaustible! !!
I pray the LORD continues to fill my heart with knowledge of Him and in all my findings and in all my getting the LORD brings those precious ("Fear not for I am with you, be not dismayed for I am your God; I will help you, I will strengthen you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand"-Isaiah 41:10) and great promises("none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself; if we live we live to the Lord and if we die we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and rose again: that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living-Romans 14:9-11) to my remembrance!
Lord..please help me to remember!!