Everyone gets anxious or worries about something. However, anxiety and worry can become a disease in our world today. An intense and excessive form of this may be so bad that it can become a disorder needing professional help. Symptoms of this disorder can be physical and not just mental in nature. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), anxiety or worry is the number one most common mental health disorder in the world.
But to Christians, and I mean genuine Christians who believe in Jesus Christ, this is not true. These people are really members of the Kingdom of God, and what Presbyterians and some Reformed Christians call the Invisible Church. As such, these believers do as God and Jesus Christ teach them in the Bible.
The Bible teaches Christians that they are not to let anxiety and worry rule their lives, but they should rely on God to care for and protect them as He chooses. This is very important. So much so that Jesus the Messiah mentioned it several times in Scripture (Matt. 6:25, 34; Luke 12:22; etc.).
Christians are taught to turn over their anxious and worrisome thoughts to God in prayer, trusting that He will protect them (Phil. 4:6, 7).
The Greek word μεριμάω, transliterated merimnaó (pron. mer-im-NAH-oh), is used a dozen or so times in the New Testament. This word is always translated as some form of anxious. Anxiety or worry is the uneasiness or even fear people feel about something that has happened, is happening, or will happen in the future. They are said to be anxious and to worry about these things.
Jesus included a section on anxiety or worry in Matthew 6:25–34. He taught us not to be anxious about anything because God will provide what we need in life. He told us that we will not add a single hour to our lives by worrying about things. (Matt. 6:27). In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us that we should not be like non-Christians who seek after the things of life, but that we should first seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, rather than be anxious and worry about things.
Luke wrote about anxiety and worry in Luke 12:22–31, where he repeats what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6. Although he used a few different terms, like “be worried,” in verse 29, he essentially wrote what Jesus said about anxiety and worry in His Sermon on the Mount.
The Reformation Study Bible provides its opinion of what Christians should take from what Jesus says about anxiety and worry in the Sermon on the Mount.
- Concern for worldly goods is foolish because life itself is more important than what sustains it (v. 23),
- God will take care of His own, just as He cares for the birds of the air (v. 24),
- Anxiety accomplishes nothing (vv. 25, 26),
- As heirs of the inexhaustible riches of the kingdom of God, believers should not worry about earthly details (vv. 32, 33).[1]
The apostle Paul writes about the worries of Christians when he tells them “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4: 6).
Peter writes that Christians are told to humble themselves and lay all their anxieties on God because He cares about believers (1 Pet. 5:6, 7).
Paul includes Jesus’ refusal to remove the thorn in Paul’s flesh because He said His grace is sufficient to sustain Paul amid the anxieties it causes (2 Cor. 12:9).
CONCLUSION
A response to an anxious or worrisome feeling is more than an emotional unsettling; it is actually fear. The fear that someone or something is a threat. This is the normal response of human beings to anxiety and worry in their life if they are not believers in Jesus Christ.
But to the Christian, the Fear of God is not the fear that is felt by the unbelieving human being. It is a feeling of awe, reverence, and respect for God, and specifically for Jesus Christ. Anxiety and worry can drive a human being to fear. However, it is something Christians feel that drives them to worship God. This Fear of God is described in Hebrews 12:28, 29, where it is written, “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”
In the end, the Christian should not be anxious or worrisome about anything since God is present with us and will care for and protect us according to His will. What we would normally fear may kill us, injure us, or in some way make life a little more intolerable, but that is God’s will. God is perfectly righteous and only does good and righteous things according to God’s will. But He can, by His will, allow something bad to happen to us.
Christians should remember that everything that happens, good or bad, is under God’s control. Therefore, Christians should present these events and circumstances that may cause anxiety and worry to God in prayer, and then let God do with them as He sees fit. But worrying about it is not something a Christian should do.
[1] R.C. Sproul, gen. ed., The Reformation Study Bible, Rom., n. 12:22-34, (Reformation Trust Publishing, 2015 (ESV)), p. 1813.
