Anxiety

“Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, But a good word makes it glad.” (Proverbs 12:25 NKJV)

The truth is everyone has anxious thoughts and feelings. It’s what you do with those thoughts and feelings that matter. However most people are not equipped to deal with those thoughts and feelings correctly. If we don’t reject anxiety we actually accept depression. Anxiety must be acknowledged and rejected or there will be a very real downward spiral from anxiety to depression. Whatever we fail to deal with will eventually deal with us. Anxiety becomes depression, anger becomes bitterness and worry becomes fear. If we renew our mind and guard our heart the anxious thoughts or feelings will not have the power to control us and become depression. The Bible tells us to be anxious for nothing, which means we have power / authority over anxiety in Christ. If you are a believer and you believe and obey you can be free from anxiety and or depression. Some people are healed instantly many go through a process of recovery and the restoration of soul. Either way you can be well in Jesus. When you identify an anxious though acknowledge it, reject it and think faith not fear. Think trust not worry, think forgiveness not anger. Use your mouth to agree with God’s mind and speak and pray out what God has said in his word. If you are unaware of what God has said in his word, start reading your bible and renewing your mind. That will give you the ability to discern between good and evil. When you humble yourself you will find God’s grace will b e there to help you change. Humility leads to victory. You will get stronger in the struggle and you will build history with God. There is nothing more important than having a real relationship with God through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit according to the scriptures.

Unforgiveness | Bitterness | Deception

When we have unforgiveness in our life it changes the way we see reality. It even distorts how we see ourselves. When we have unforgiveness it feels like the whole world owes us something. When we have unforgiveness we are defined by what someone did to us or didn’t do for us. When we forgive we defined by what Jesus did for us. Unforgiveness even affects things that have nothing to do with the reason why we may have unforgiveness in the first place. Unforgiveness in one area of our life leads to bondage and deception in other areas of our life. Unforgiveness quickly turns into bitterness. Bitterness is poison to our soul, and it’s poison to those who hear and listen to us. Have you ever heard or said something that was right but felt totally wrong? That may be because it’s coming from a bitter root. If we want to move forward we must forgive. The only one unforgiveness holds hostage is us. Our future depends on us forgiving and letting the past go. If we let the past go it will let us go. Whether we are forgiving ourself or someone else, forgiveness is a key that opens up the doors to our destiny.

Overcoming Emotionalism

Choices are more powerful than feelings.

Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it — lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’? Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. (Luke 14:25-33 NKJV) 

My emphasis will be on the words that are bold. Here Jesus is talking about the cost of discipleship. If you read the gospels carefully you will find that Jesus never looked for half hearted followers. He was always looking for the totally committed, those who would be fully given. Often people make decisions based out of emotions. Which means they make commitments they don’t intend to keep. We have all done this at one time or another. It is crucial to know that we can overcome our feelings with faith that is rooted in the truth.

Jesus uses two illustrations that make his point clear.

  1. You don’t build a tower that you don’t have enough money to finish. That is not faith its presumption. Presumption is usually rooted in selfish ambition. We should not make decisions based out of ambition because the decisions will always be unrealistic. The emotion of ambition will not lead you into a decision, it will lead you into a disaster. The fruit of that disaster will be shame. Don’t let ambition decide your trajectory, let faith decide your capacity and let integrity chart your course.
  2. You don’t start a fight you can’t win. Anger causes people to start fights they can’t win. We need to check ourselves before we make a decision from a place of anger. Anger will cause you to get into things you may not walk away from.

To make it clear we need to count the cost of our commitments before we make them. It is critical that we don’t make decisions or commitments based out of emotions when we haven’t counted the cost. Ambition and Anger can cause us to commit to building something we can’t finish or fight a battle we can’t win. Counting the cost is actually what helps us prepare to pay the price. Similar to stretching before you exercise. When we prepare ourselves we are actually positioning ourselves to succeed.