Different bodies feel differently despite similar thought processes and experiences, but God did not tell us to fight a battle that is impossible to win.
With God’s help, each one of us can progressively improve in the way we fight fear, worry, and anxiety.
All throughout the gospels, Jesus addressed the fear, worry, and anxiety that those around Him were experiencing. However, He didn’t just do this to bring physical comfort to those experiencing ill effects of anxiety. He challenged those He encountered to understand the spiritual significance of their anxiety. Fear, worry, and anxiety affect our physical health, but they also reflect our spiritual health. Our brain’s responses are most influenced by our hearts and our values. Our thinking and actions reflect the spiritual condition of our hearts.
Jesus taught us to examine our fear, worry, and anxiety as clues into who we worship or what we worship in any given moment. In conversations with Jesus, His questions often exposed the values and thinking that were causing fear, anxiety, and worry. His goal was never to shame those who honestly sought Him, but rather His questions were an invitation to trust in Him as the creator and provider of all that they truly needed.
When Jesus was teaching His disciples about fear, worry, and anxiety, He taught four key principles. These principles reveal how a wrong response to fear, worry, and anxiety can hinder our spiritual walk, and why we must take our fear, worry, and anxiety seriously as followers of Christ.
Even though Jesus was full of compassion, His primary goal was not simply to eliminate the physical discomfort that fear, worry, and anxiety bring into our lives. He taught us that our emotions reflect what is going on in our hearts, values, and thinking. If we are going to take our faith seriously, we need to listen to the clues that anxiety brings our way.Jesus talked about fear, worry, and anxiety often because He didn’t want us to lose sight of what was most important in life. In each principle Jesus taught about anxiety, He also gives us an action step. Use the four principles below to evaluate your heart and see how you should take action.