The foremost way to avoid anxiety is through prayer. Right thinking and action are the next logical steps, but it all begins with prayer.
– MacArthur, John; FOUND: GOD”S PEACE – Experiencing True Freedom From Anxiety in Every Circumstance; David C. Cook Publishing; Colorado Springs, CO; Copyright 1993, 2015; Kindle Edition; Location 52
Just as Matthew 6 is Jesus’ great statement on worry, Philippians 4 is the apostle Paul’s charter on how to avoid anxiety. These passages are the most comprehensive portions of Scripture dealing with our topic and therefore are foundational to understanding how God feels about anxiety and why He feels that way. The teaching is clear, compelling and direct.
– MacArthur, John; FOUND: GOD’S PEACE – Experiencing True Freedom From Anxiety in Every Circumstance; David C. Cook Publishing; Colorado Springs, CO; Copyright 1993, 2015; Location 44
Thus far we have considered the individual’s personal relations to God, but like the ointment of a man’s right hand, which by its fragrance “betrayeth itself”, any intensified knowledge of God will soon begin to affect those around us in the Christian community. And we must seek purposefully to share our increasing light with the fellow members of the household of God.
This we can best do by keeping the majesty of God in full focus in all our public services. Not only our private prayers should be filled with God, by our witnessing, our singing, our preaching, our writing should center around the Person of our holy, holy Lord and extol continually the greatness of His dignity and power. There is a glorified Man on the right hand of the Majesty in heaven faithfully representing us there. We are left for a season among men; let us faithfully represent Him here.
– A.W.Tozer; Knowledge of the Holy; Kindle Version; Page 94
Let me present a brief summary of these conditions as taught by the Bible and repeated through the centuries by the holiest, sweetest saints the world has ever known:
– A.W.Tozer; Knowledge of the Holy; Kindle Version; Page 92-94
The God we must learn to know is the Majesty in the heavens, God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, the only wise God, our Saviour. It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, who stretheth out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in, who bringeth out His starry host by number and calleth them all by name through the greatness of His power, who seeth the works of man as vanity, who putteth no confidence in princes and asks no counsel of kings.
– A.W.Tozer; Knowledge of the Holy; Kindle Version; Page 92
When viewed from the perspective of eternity, the most critical need of this hour may well be that the Church should be brought back from her long Babylonian captivity and the name of God be glorified in her again as of old. Yet we must not think of the Church as an anonymous body, a mystical religious abstraction. We Christians are the Church and whatever we do is what the Church is doing. The matter, therefore, is for each of us a personal one. Any forward step in the Church must begin with the individual.
– A.W.Tozer; Knowledge of the Holy; Kindle Version; Page 92
Here is my view: God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, “What does though?” Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.
– A.W.Tozer; Knowledge of the Holy; Kindle Version; Page 89
While a complete explanation of the origin of sin eludes us, there are a few things we do know. In His sovereign wisdom God has permitted evil to exist in carefully restricted areas of His creation, a kind of fugitive outlaw whose activities are temporary and limited in scope. In doing this God has acted according to His infinite wisdom and goodness. More than that no one knows at present; and more than that no one needs to know. The name of God is sufficient guarantee of the perfection of His works.
– A.W.Tozer; Knowledge of the Holy; Kindle Version; Page 88
When God enables us to connect with the truth of how he loves us just as we are, even when we can’t change, our responding joy in worship can be the fuel that propels us onward to do the hard and potentially discouraging work of taking a good long look at our hearts and coming up with creative ways to change.
– Duguid, Barbara; Extravagant Grace: God’s Glory Displayed in our Weakness; P&R Publishing; Philipsburg, NJ; copyright 2013; Page 175
To grasp the idea of unqualified freedom requires a vigorous effort of the mind. We are not psychologically conditioned to understand freedom except in its imperfect forms. Our concepts of it have been shaped in a world where no absolute freedom exists. Here each natural object is dependent upon many other objects, and that dependence limits its freedom.
– A.W.Tozer; Knowledge of the Holy; Kindle Version; Page 87
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