WORRY WART
BREAD
9 I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant’; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. 10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:9-10 (NIV)
13 “For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. 14 Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you,” declares the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah 41:13-14 (NIV)
1 But now, this is what the LORD says–he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. 3 For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” Isaiah 43:1-3 (NIV)
5 Do not be afraid, for I am with you. Isaiah 43:5 (NIV)
29 Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. 30 The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, 31 and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.” 32 In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God, 33 who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go. Deuteronomy 1:29-33 (NIV)
25 “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? 26 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? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28 And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 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? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:25-34 (NIV)
7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. 6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. 7 They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion. Psalms 84:5-7 (NIV)
3 I thank my God every time I remember you. 4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:3-6 (NIV)
11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. 12 O LORD Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you. Psalms 84:11-12 (NIV)
BUTTER
“Worry occurs when we distrust His promises, disregard His power, and discount His presence. Worry believes that our problems are greater than His power. Worry fears that God may, while carrying us, drop us. But He will not drop us. He carries us all the way until we reach our heavenly home.” Robert J. Morgan
“Regret looks back. Worry looks around. Faith looks up.” John Mason
“I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sands in the machinery of life; faith is the oil. I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is gasping for breath—these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breathe freely—these are my native air.” E. Stanley Jones
“We can wait in eager expectation rather than wringing our hands in worry as God has promised to cause all things to work together for our good and we can trust Him in any and every circumstance. He is ever faithful to His promises and loving towards all He has made. He loves us with an everlasting love and His eye is ever on us. He was faithful in the past, He is faithful today and He will be faithful tomorrow. What a gracious and loving God we serve.” BHY
“Walk on the path of integrity with confidence, and show that you are invincibly strong in the strength that confidence in God alone confers. In this way you will be delivered from anxious care; you will be untroubled by evil tidings, and your heart will be fixed, trusting in the Lord. How pleasant to float along on the stream of providence! There is no more blessed way of living than a life of dependence upon a covenant-keeping God. We do not need to worry because He cares for us; we do not need to carry burdens because He invites us to cast them upon Him.” Charles H. Spurgeon
“‘There is no fear in love’, writes the apostle John, ‘but perfect love drives out fear…’ He goes on to point to the source of that perfect love: ‘We love because He first loved us’. In other words, the cure to fear is not a change in circumstances, rather a deep grounding in the love of God. I ask God to reveal His love to me directly, or through my relationships with those who also know Him—a prayer I think God takes great delight in answering. When I get depressed about my present failures, I ask God to remind me of my true identity: one who will be made perfect and has already been forgiven. ‘You’ve got to go deeper’, said the nun to my burned out pastor. ‘Sink the well into a water table that never runs dry’…Thomas Merton conceded that everything in modern city life conspires against such surrender. We worry (fear) about money, about what we need to have and to know, about whom to compete with and what is slipping out of our control…(he) found the secret to true freedom: If we live to please God alone (the One who loves us), we set ourselves free from the cares and worries that press in on us.” Phillip Yancey
“Worry is an intrusion into God’s providence.” John Haggai
“Worry is the great robber of peace and joy. What has it ever done for us except to make us miserable and steal away our valuable time? Can we really afford to give in to its far-reaching destruction? If we are a child of the King, if it is true that God is our loving Father and that all of His promises are for us and “yes” in Jesus, then what do we have to worry about?” BHY
“God promises victory to those who endure, so He gives us enough strength – usually just enough so faith is still required – to keep us going. He wants us to succeed and not give up. In the walk of faith, we can’t afford to doubt, worry, fear, or complain – the very symptoms that kept a generation of Israelites out of their Promised Land. All of these attitudes severely undermine God’s work on our behalf, not because He can’t do whatever He wants but because He has chosen to relate to us on the basis of our faith. Negative attitudes and words undermine faith. They devalue the very currency we have to use in God’s Kingdom. Wherever God’s voice and your faith are leading you, do not be afraid or dismayed.” Chris Tiegreen
“The grace that’s in this moment is your manna. Wish for the past and you drink poison. Worry about the future and you eat fire. Stay in this moment and you eat the manna needed for now.” Ann Voskamp
“Live today. Tomorrow we are not given. Yesterday we cannot change. Grace is given in exact proportion for the day and need we are in – never more or less – the right now and time of the moment – for every heir of mercy – just as manna was. It will be there tomorrow – and worry will not get it there. It is always bestowed by the gracious, faithful Hand of God.” BHY
“Come then with the blind eye of darkened understanding; come with the limping foot of wasted energy; come with the disabled hand of weak faith, the fever of an angry temper, or the fit of shivering despondency; come just as you are, for He who is God can certainly restore you. No one can restrain the healing power that proceeds from Jesus our Lord.” C. H. Spurgeon revised by Alistair Begg
HEART SAVOR
• Worry gets us nowhere fast.
• Be anxious about nothing, pray about everything.
• Fearful saint take courage leaning on His Omnipotent Everlasting Arms.
Beth Yoe's Sharing Bread 