The Consuming Power of Anxiety

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Scripture:

1Pet. 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.

Observation:

While admonishing the followers of Jesus Christ to stand firm in their faith, Peter reminds them to cast all their anxiety on the Lord.  They lived in an anxious time, one in which these Christ-followers were experiencing persecution for their faith.  Anxiety would exist on many levels, from personal safety to provision for the family.  Christianity was and is, counter-cultural and one possible result of living a counter-cultural life is anxiety.  It’s easy to begin worrying about how all of this will play out in the world.  Peter puts an end to worry and anxiety by placing the focus on Christ.  Christ, the one who has been from the very beginning, the one who was engaged in creation, “cares for you.” This puts anxiety into balance.  The consuming power of anxiety is to be replaced by the consuming love of Christ. 

Application:

Life is filled with challenges that can easily cause fear and anxiety.  Some days simply stepping out that front door means that we are going to experience potentially anxiety inducing encounters. On a spiritual level, Peter understood the power of this anxiety.  Why else would he have taken the time to mention it?  Fear and anxiety have always been present and have had the ability to hinder the Christ-follower from fulling their Holy Spirit empowered potential. Doesn’t this sound like a ploy of the enemy?  Of course, because to unleash the bottled-up potential of transformed followers of Christ would have a powerful impact on the world.

Therefore it’s important to our relationship to Christ into focus.  The primary focus of engagement with the world must be Christ.  Our relationship to him must be in balance and we may need to live in the daily reminder that he really does care for us.  This is the power of Christ’s care as compared to life’s anxiety producing moments, this is where we must live.  The focus must always be on Christ.  Paul said to “pray continually.” Why?  So that our hearts and minds would be consumed with our love and passion for our Savior and that our love for him would leave no room for anything else. 

The consuming power of anxiety can be replaced by our consuming love for the one who cares for us. 

Prayer:

Lord, please help me place all my trust in you this day.  Thank you for your consuming love.  Amen.

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 30, 2014 at 5:37 PM

    This is so beautiful, Carla! Thank you for allowing God to speak to me through you! :)

    ReplyDelete

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