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Cares,
prayer and believing
Stress is
certainly one of the top problems of our age. The media and the doctors
very frequently speak about it and a whole category of professionals
(psychoanalysts, psychologists, therapists etc.) has been grown to help
people to fight it. However, their "solutions" - usually some
advises or worse, some pills that perhaps differ little from common
drugs - cannot give a real answer to it, and this because they ignore
what the Word of God says about it. Therefore, if we don't want to be
ignorant as well, it is needed to see what this Word says and this is
what we will do today.
1. Philippians
4:4-7
Though many passages of the Word deal with
the problem of anxiety, a look just at Philippians 4:4-7 is enough to
show us what God thinks about it. Really, there we read:
Philippians 4:4-7
"Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!
Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be
anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of
God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds
through Christ Jesus"
Verse 4 calls us to
rejoice in the Lord and in fact to rejoice, to be glad in Him, ALWAYS.
As it says, the Lord is "at hand" i.e. very near to us. That's
why we should be "ANXIOUS FOR NOTHING BUT in everything by prayer
and supplication, with thanksgiving, to let our requests be made known
to God;" As it may be obvious, the word "but" that is
used in this passage makes a contrast between what we should not do and
which is to be anxious, and what we should do and which is "in
everything to let our requests be made known to God by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving". Another contrast is also made with
the words “nothing” and “everything”. Thus, we are to be anxious
for NOTHING but in EVERYTHING to let our requests be made known to God.
The guaranteed result of these instructions is given in verse 7, where
we are promised that if we follow them "the peace of God, which
surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus."
Summarizing therefore, the solution that God
suggests to the anxiety problem is very very simple: it consists of one
"not to do": do not be anxious or "be anxious for
nothing". One "to do": "in everything by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to
God", and the result that is PEACE, and in fact "the peace of
GOD [the only true peace], which surpasses all understanding".
2. I Peter 5:7
The above passage of Philippians 4 is not the
only one that is concerned with the cares problem. With the same problem
is also I Peter 5:7 concerned. There we read:
I Peter 5:6-7
"Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God,
that He may exalt you in due time, CASTING ALL YOUR CARES UPON HIM, FOR
HE CARES FOR YOU"
To take something
that is upon you and cast it upon someone else requires action. That's
exactly what God asks to do with our cares1:
instead of bearing them on ourselves, He asks us to take action, but not
by worrying for them but by casting them on HIM. And this not only for a
few cares that we may think as more important than others, but for ALL
OUR CARES. "CAST ALL YOUR CARES UPON HIM, FOR HE CARES FOR YOU"
says the Word. Moreover, in another part it says:
Psalms 55:22
"Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you;
He shall never permit the righteous to be moved"
Obviously therefore,
the question is not whether God cares for us nor whether He desires to
be our cares-bearer but whether WE WILL HAVE THE HUMILITY ("humble
yourselves under the mighty hand of God.....casting all your cares upon
Him" the text says) to cast all our cares UPON HIM, exactly as He
calls us.
3. Matthew
6:25-34
Apart from the above two passages, that
are concerned with the cares problem, Matthew 6:25-34 is also concerned
with it. There we read:
Matthew 6:25-34
"Therefore I say to you do not worry
[Greek: "merimno" the same word as in Philippians 4:6 and I
Peter 5:7] about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink;
nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more
than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air,
for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly
Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you
worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about
clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither
toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of
the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He
not much more clothe you O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry,
saying, "What shall we eat? or "what shall we drink?" or
what shall we wear?" For after all these things the Gentiles seek.
For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But
seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these
things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for
tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its
own trouble."
Food water and
clothes are some of our most basic physical needs. However, we are not
the only ones that know this. GOD knows it as well!! That's why He tells
us through the Lord Jesus Christ: "do not worry, saying,
"What shall we eat" or "what shall we drink?" or
"what shall we wear?" ...............for your Heavenly Father
knows that you need all these things2".
And if one asks what are we to do instead of worrying, verse 33 tells
us: "seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness and all
these things will be added to you". FIRST is God, His kingdom and
His righteousness and all the other things will be added to us. As also
Matthew 7:7-11 says:
Matthew 7:7-11
"ASK and it shall be given to you; SEEK and you will find;
KNOCK, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives,
and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or
what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give
him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If
you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how
much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to
those who ask Him?"
Who is the one that
finds? Who is the one to whom it will be opened? To whom God will give
good things? To those that ASK Him, to those that knock His door. Again
therefore, as in I Peter 5:7 also here the question is not whether God
is willing to take action and cover our needs but whether WE will take
action, not by worrying but by praying (that's our action, plus anything
else that God may tell us to do), casting all our cares upon Him. It is
then His job to act, giving us what we have prayed for and even more
(Ephesians 3:20), IF of course what we have prayed for is in accordance
with His will.
4. I John
5:14-15
Regarding the latter (i.e. the alignment
of what we ask of God with His will) I John 5:14-15 tells us:
I John 5:14-15
"Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we
ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that
He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we
have asked of Him"
This passage does
not say that "if we ask anything God hears us" but "if we
ask anything, ACCORDING TO HIS WILL, God hears us". Therefore, for
our prayer to be heard it is necessary what we pray to be in alignment
with God's will, which as Romans 12:2 tells us is: "GOOD,
ACCEPTABLE AND PERFECT". Thus, it is necessary to know the will of
God so that to know what we should expect from Him. And as to know the
will of someone he has first to make it known to us somehow, so also to
know the will of God He has to make it known to us, either through the
Bible, His written word, or through the holy spirit that He gave us when
we were born again. Regarding the former, when for example it says that
we should not care about eating, drinking and clothing but seek first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be
added to us, it gives us the will of God about cares and priorities: put
God first it tells us, be anxious for nothing; instead cast all your
cares upon Him, and "all these things will be added to you".
The same also happens with many other things that have general
application for all, such as salvation, manifestations of the spirit,
healing etc. For these and for any other thing that the rightly divided
Word of God defines as God's will, it is not needed to wait for God to
come and announce to us in private that we can really have them for HE
HAS ALREADY ANNOUNCED THIS IN HIS WORD.
However, apart from the things that have a
general application and are fully covered by the written Word of God,
the Bible, there are also other, special things, that because of their
special character are not covered by it. Thus for example, the Word of
God, apart from some general guidelines about what we should generally expect3,
does not tell me that the x job is for me, or that I should go to the so
and so place tomorrow to do the such and such work for God there. How
therefore can I know what is the will of God about these or other
similar things? The answer is THROUGH THE SPIRIT THAT GOD GAVE US to
communicate with us. God is not only in the Bible, as many Christians
think. He is also in us through the spirit that He gave us and which is
manifested by the nine ways enumerated in I Corinthians 12:8-10. These
are: word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working
of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, kinds of tongues,
interpretation of tongues. From these nine manifestations, those of word
of knowledge and word of wisdom have specifically been given to us for
knowledge and wisdom about situations, that otherwise would be
impossible to acquire by the five sense. Thus, if I want to learn
whether it is God's will to get the so and so job or to do the such and
such thing, I should not go to my intellect, nor should I start try it
out. Instead, I should go to my Father, discuss the thing with Him, and
He will make known to me whether it is wise and good to make the choices
that I may consider to make. As James 1:5 says:
James 1:5
"if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to
all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him"
God really wants us
(this is His WILL) to go to Him and receive wisdom abundantly and
without reproach.
To conclude therefore: God really nowhere tells
us that all His will is in His written Word, as many people support. A
large part of it that has general application for everybody and that we
all need is there. Yet, there are things that are special and cannot be
covered by the written Word. These include a large part of our everyday
decisions and God certainly is not without a will for them. He really
has a will for everything we are doing and the way to find it, if of
course it is not already written in the Bible, is by asking Him to show
it to us, to reveal it to us, through His spirit. Returning therefore to I John 5:14-15, we have to make sure, through the
written and/or the spoken word of God what is the will of God about the
things that we are asking of Him. If what we are asking of Him is in
alignment with His will, we can be sure that it will come to pass as we
trust Him. If however, it is not in alignment with God's will, then I
John 5:14-15 makes clear that ....... fortunately this will not happen.
5.
"Asking in faith"
We examined previously James 1:5 that
speaks about asking God for wisdom. Continuing in the same passage we
read:
James 1:5-8
"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to
all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But
let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave
of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose
that he will receive anything form the Lord. A double minded man is
unstable in all his ways"
As we saw in the
previous parts, for someone to receive from God, it is needed i) to ask
Him and ii) what he asks to be in alignment with His will. Now, in
addition to these, a third condition that is added here is faith. As the
above passage tells us if a man is not asking God in faith he is not
going to receive anything from Him. Now regarding the meaning of faith,
the phrase “but let him ask in faith with no doubting” (James
1:6)
puts faith and doubt in opposition. Thus, when we trust God we have
faith and when we doubt Him we lack it. Faith therefore is the trust we
have in God and by which we give Him the permission to act in our lives.
The lack of faith does not minimize the power of God to help us. God has
the same power either we have faith or not. Yet, whether we will permit
Him to utilize His power in our lives depends on our trust towards Him.
You don't open your door to someone if you do not trust him. Similarly,
you don't permit God to get in and act if you do not trust Him, i.e. if
you don't believe Him.
As Matthew 13:58 characteristically tells us,
when Christ went to his own country, "he did not do many mighty
works there BECAUSE OF THEIR UNBELIEF". Of course Christ was able
to do the same works there as he did anywhere else. Yet the people of
that area didn't permit this, because of their unbelief.
Turning now to the magnitude of faith that is
needed to receive from God, Matthew 17:20 makes clear that even the
minutest believing is enough for the greatest things. Really there we
read:
Matthew 17:20
"if you have faith AS A MUSTARD SEED, you will say to this
mountain, "Move from here to there", and it will move; and
nothing will be impossible for you”
and Mark 11:24 also tells us:
“Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray,
believe that you receive them, and you will have them”
According to
Bullinger and Zodhiates the phrase "mustard seed” “is a
proverbial phrase for the smallest particle4."
Thus, according to Jesus, faith even as little as a mustard seed is
enough to move mountains, and bring to pass whatever we ask from God IF
(and here there is a very very big IF), as I John 5:14-15 tells us, what
we ask is in alignment with the will of God. It is this latter condition
that many times is not taken into account, and we worry why we do not
receive “whatever things we ask when we pray”, though we may both
pray and believe for them. However it is not enough to pray and believe
for something. It is also needed what you pray and believe TO BE THE
WILL OF GOD. If it is really the will of God then even as little
believing as a mustard seed is enough to bring it to pass. If it is not
however in alignment with the will of God, then even the greatest
believing will cause nothing, at least from God's side. Therefore, the
equation is not “believing = receiving” but “I believe WHAT I
ALREADY KNOW THAT IS THE WILL OF GOD, and I receive it” Hence, faith
is not a process by which I persuade myself that I'm going to receive
from God anything that may have come in my head. Instead it is my trust
in Him, expressed by my acts through which I carry out what I ALREADY
KNOW AS HIS WILL. Therefore, even if the Lord tells me that something is
not His will and thus I should do nothing, if I really follow His
instruction and do nothing, then I have believed Him. First therefore
you have the Word, the will, of God (written or spoken) for something
and THEN you believe it and act according to what it says.
6. Psalms
64:18
Finally, closing this article I would like
to refer to one more reason which, according to the Bible, can make God
silent to one's prayers. This is given in Psalms 64:18, where we read:
Psalms 64:18
"If I regard iniquity in my heart, THE LORD WILL NOT
HEAR."
As we can see the regard, the respect
of iniquity by a man's heart makes God silent to his prayer. As Peter
very characteristically told Simon the sorcerer:
Acts 8:21-22
"You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your
heart is not RIGHT in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this your
wickedness.... "
God is interested in
the HEART, for only there He can dwell. If a heart is not upright in His
eyes but wicked, then it is certainly not an appropriate place for Him.
As Proverbs 15:29 tells us:
Proverbs 15:29
"The Lord is far from the wicked, But He hears the prayer of
the righteous"
Of course there are
wicked and evil people out there. And the reason that I added this part
is because some of them may sometime cross our way. Thus if someone
tells you that He doesn't receive from the Lord, a possible reason (but
not the only one) is because in his heart there may be iniquity and
wickedness, and God does not hear such persons.
6. Conclusion
In this article we examined the topic of
cares, as well as what the Word of God says about it. As we saw: God
wants us to care for nothing but to cast all our cares upon Him through
prayer. In addition to this, we also saw that there should be agreement
between what we ask of God and His good, acceptable and perfect will.
God does not have nor He gives second rate things to us. His will is
perfect, and what He has for us is PERFECT too (James 1:17). To conclude
therefore:
Proverbs 3:5-8
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your
own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct
your path. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart
from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your
bones."
Tassos Kioulachoglou
Footnotes
1. The word
"care" in this passage is a translation of the Greek noun
"merimna" the verb form of which ["merimnao"] is
translated as "be anxious" in Philippians 4:4-7 (press
here to return where you stopped).
2. The passage does not
say "do not pray" but "DO NOT WORRY
for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things". The
teaching is against worries and not against prayer which in fact is what
is suggested against worries (see Philippians 4:4-7, I Peter 5:7 and
Matthew 7:7-11) (press here to return where you stopped).
3. It tells us for
example that the gifts of God are good and perfect (James 1:17),
that God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we ask or
think (Ephesians 3:20), that the blessing of the Lord makes one rich,
and he adds no sorrow with it (Proverbs 9:22) etc. (press
here to return where you stopped).
4. See E.W.Bulliinger:
“A Critical Lexicon and concordance to the English and Greek New
Testament”, Zondervan Publishing House, 1975, p. 513
και Spiros Zodhiates: “The Complete Word Study
Dictionary”, AMG Publishers, 1993 p. 1290 (press here
to return where you stopped).
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