"Recipe For Peace"

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Many fine Christians are needlessly suffering with a burden of worry or as some of them choose to call it, concern, when the recipe to overcome this burden is given in God's Word. I realize that to those who suffer from this burden, it is more than just not being able to trust. This is indeed an enormous burden and one not to be taken lightly. The Lord Himself doesn't take this lightly as He offers us words of encouragement throughout the Bible. There are many well meaning people who offer all kinds of advice and to most who really are burdened with worry, it usually only proves to make matters worse. Many will say things like, "Just trust in the Lord" or "Have faith". Well, this is what we are to do, but to someone who is really burdened with the problem of worry, this is far easier said than done. It is my prayer that this little article will be of a real blessing and help to those who are having this problem.

First of all, many people tend to blame themselves when they become stricken with the temptation to worry and all that does is make it worse. As you will notice, I called it the temptation to worry. That's because that's exactly what it is. We must recognize the source of this problem. It is of the devil, for God would never tempt His children to worry. Once we recognize the source of it, it will be a little easier to learn to deal with it. We are all tempted to worry, but some are just more capable of dealing with it. It's not because one is more of a child of God. God loves all His children alike. Now that we see that, one may say, "Well what can I do about it?". God knew from the beginning that we would be faced with this temptation, so He left us detailed instructions as to how to overcome it.

We have all read and heard the scripture verse found in Philippians 4:16 where it says, "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." Many a well meaning preacher and many a well meaning brother and sister have used this verse of scripture to try and help some poor soul to overcome their worrying. But I believe with all my heart that they don't or can't realize the intensity of what those they are trying to help are going through. As you have noticed, I have entitled this little article, "Recipe For Peace". Well, I also believe with all my heart that there is indeed a recipe and I also believe that the Lord has given it to us in this very verse. Most of the time when we read this verse of scripture, we just read it and we don't take the time to rightly divide it as we are instructed to do in 2 Timothy 2:15.

A man named Bob Featherstone of Northwestern College in St. Paul Minnesota claims that the King James version of the Bible is misleading and he uses 2 Timothy 2:15 as an example when he claims that the King James version implies that the Word of God needs to be chopped up in order to be true. By the way, he prefers the Living Bible version. Well, that's not what 2 Timothy 2:15 is talking about at all and if Mr. Featherstone would rightly divide the Word of truth, he probably wouldn't be worried about the King James version. Anyway, I got a little off track there. Please forgive me.

As I said, Philippians 4:6 says, "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." Now, the recipe.

1:
Be careful for nothing. Now, this doesn't mean to go out and try to walk across I-85 with a blindfold on. All this means is that when (not if) the devil tempts us with this burden of worry, this is to be our final response. Realizing all the promises God has made and knowing that my God will supply all my needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus, we recognize that this temptation is of the devil. Now, knowing that this alone would not be sufficient to overcome these attacks, the Lord gave us other ingredients to this recipe.

2:
Prayerful for everything. Obviously, there is some circumstance that the devil has used to cause us to be tempted to worry. Our first instinct if we even thought about praying, would be to pray about the circumstance. That's exactly what the devil would want us to do. There is nothing wrong with praying about our circumstances, but right now the main problem is the worry associated with those circumstances. Now is a good time to go to the Lord telling Him that the devil is tempting us with this worry and asking Him to deliver us from that worry. God already knows about the circumstance and He knows that there is an even greater problem in that of our worry. He also didn't stop the recipe there, because He leaves nothing incomplete. He has given us more ingredients.

3:
Thankful for everything. The song says, "Count your blessings. Name them one by one". Well, the verse of scripture that God has given us compels us to, "with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God". Once we have asked Him to deliver us from the temptation the devil has laid on us, let us begin to thank Him for all that He has given to us. We can never completely cover all that He has given to and done for us. But while we are thanking Him it would truly be difficult to be worried about what's going on.

Friend, if you are a child of God, don't let the devil discourage you by telling you that you don't have faith, because faith was what made you a child of God. I pray that if you are one who is burdened by the temptation of worry, the Lord will use this little article to bless you. If you do get comfort and relief from it, praise Him. The recipe is not mine and while you are counting your many blessings and naming them one by one, you can add another to the list should you get that far.

And should the devil start trying to discourage you by telling you about your past, try telling him about his future. God bless you!