Philippians 4:6\u20137 (NIV)
\n6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.<\/p>\n
This is one of my favorite passages in the Scriptures. We are actually commanded not to worry. Now, let\u2019s make this clear: God never commands us to do anything without empowering us to carry out his command. But you say, \u201cThat\u2019s not God talking, that\u2019s Paul.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, Paul is simply repeating the command of our Lord.<\/p>\n
Luke 12:22 (ESV)
\nAnd he said to his disciples, \u201cTherefore I tell you,
\ndo not be anxious about your life,\u2026<\/p>\n
So If God commands us not to worry or live in anxiety, then there must be a way to obey.<\/p>\n
However, it\u2019s not only a command, but it is a command with a promise. If we obey this command, we are promised peace that goes way beyond our understanding.<\/p>\n
So, how do we keep from worrying? By coming to God in prayer with thanksgiving and presenting our request to God.<\/p>\n
You say, \u201cNow, wait a minute. I\u2019ve prayed to God about situations and after I prayed, I still felt no peace. But, I\u2019m promised peace, so what\u2019s the deal?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all wrapped up in this little \u201cPrayer Secret,\u201d
\nLET YOUR GAZE BE ON GOD,
\nYOUR GLANCE ON YOUR REQUEST<\/p>\n
You see, most of us GAZE at our problem and glance at God. We start talking to God and then we begin to tell him how to fix it and before we know it, what we\u2019ve done is turn our prayer into a worry session. No, what we must do is GAZE at God with praise and thanksgiving and leave the result in his hands.<\/p>\n
When our focus is on God, we can release our situations into God\u2019s hands. We acknowledge that our problem is too big for us, while at the same time declaring that it\u2019s not too big for the God who loves us.<\/p>\n
A little girl was walking home with her father one night. As they trudged along in the darkness she said, “Take my hand, Daddy! I can take only a little piece of yours, but you can take all of mine.”<\/p>\n
We will discuss this in greater detail in our Connection Time, Sunday Morning.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, GAZE at God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Philippians 4:6\u20137 (NIV) 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. This is one of my favorite passages in the Scriptures. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3312"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3313,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3312\/revisions\/3313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/southsidealive.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}