How to Live the Bible — Dealing with Life’s Anxieties

This is the one-hundred-forty-seventh lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.

We live in an age of increasing worries and anxieties. Jesus’ words “do not worry” from the Sermon on the Mount are very familiar to us, but what did he actually mean? If we look closely, we’ll see how Jesus provided a detailed and practical lifestyle that will lessen the oppression of worry and anxiety.

Jesus said: “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 than food, and the body more 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? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matt. 6:25-27).

He went on to say: “the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them” (vs. 32).

We can look at life as one long frustrating chase. Always striving to get what will make us feel secure or socially acceptable. Always worrying. Always tired of the chase. But this kind of pagan chase (roughly equivalent to what we mean by “the rat race”), does not lessen our worries and anxieties. They only get worse.

So Jesus offers a better way. He points us to the simplicity and joy of the life of birds, and the beauty of the flowers of the field. But he goes beyond that, pointing us to a fruitful pursuit as he tells us: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Here is the positive message. Stop chasing, and then start pursuing what is life-giving. Seeking first the kingdom of God means believing that God really does reign over every area of our lives. Our character development, family life, ethical decisions, work life, finances, lifestyle, citizenship, relationships, and mission in life. To submit to the reigning of God (“kingdom”), including all the boundaries God sets, is not the loss of freedom, but true liberation. That leads to less anxiety.

To seek God’s righteousness means longing for all things to be made right. That begins with being made right with God through Jesus who made it possible for us to be forgiven and to know for our whole lives that we are on God’s side and God is on our side. That is justification by faith, the righteousness or right relationship with God which we enjoy. Then we can get right with each other, with our family members and friends. We have the power and the motivation to forgive. We can’t “get right” with people who have no desire for that. But some relationships can get better. And then we can be advocates of rightness and justice in the world.

No wonder Jesus said that we should “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).

Worry and anxiety are big problems for most of us. Jesus did not say worry is sin, but that he wanted to free us from the kinds of worries that are dead-end streets and diminish our lives. And he wants us to enjoy the confidence and freedom that comes from living under God’s loving authority.

Read more on “dealing with life’s anxieties” in Mel’s teaching here.
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Mel Lawrenz (@MelLawrenz) trains an international network of Christian leaders, ministry pioneers, and thought-leaders. He served as senior pastor of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, for ten years and now serves as Elmbrook’s teaching pastor. He has a PhD in the history of Christian thought and is on the adjunct faculty of Trinity International University. Mel’s many books include Spiritual Leadership Today: Having Deep Influence in Every Walk of Life (Zondervan, 2016). See more of Mel’s writing at WordWay.

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