Anxiety and Worry Destroy the Body

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. ---1 Peter 5:6,7

I believe I’m talking to believers in this blog. That means you are the Church, saints, anointed ones, the body of Christ. You are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. You have the Greater One on the inside of you called the Holy Spirit…the same Holy Spirit that is in you is the same one that raised Jesus from the dead!! Come-on, Church, we must realize who we are in Christ! We have been given power and authority over the devil and all his devices. We are just a little lower than the angels and miles higher than the highest in authority in the devils camp. We are given weapons of destruction in the spirit to become victorious in life.

And yet, we let little things in life give us fits, cause us sleepless nights and makes our bodies sick. Why? Maybe because we dwell on those things that aren’t going the way we think they should? Maybe we are trying to control things that we shouldn’t or can’t control? Perhaps we are going to the wrong source for help and only getting deeper into a state of anxiety and worry.

Our verse for today helps us to understand what we, as believers, should do when things start to eat away at us. First we must humble ourselves before our mighty God. How do we do this? Get in an attitude of prayer, finding a quiet place with no interruptions. Prayer means to do business with God! He is your source of strength when you feel weak. When we are full of anxiety, we are very weak. To humble means we submit entirely our spirit, soul (mind, will and emotion) and our bodies to our Creator Father. Confess that you have been too busy trying to manipulate your own life and work out solutions to situations that aren’t even yours to work out. Admit that God owns everything in your life; your wallet, your possessions, your family, and your future. Then give it all back to your King. This is purely a mental and emotional exercise but it will free you from your anxious moments. What you are doing is casting all your care upon Him. The word “casting” means to literally throw with great effort, to fling or hurl away from you. When you do this, you are obeying what God has asked you to do. Obedience and trust is what God desires from every one of His children.

My favorite verse that I have walked on for years is Proverbs 3:5-7: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. But in all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your path." When we learn to trust, which means have total confidence in Him, this releases Him to become a very integral part of your life. But as long as you hold him at arms length and say, “No Lord, I can do this myself” then He cannot enter your situation.

Our body responds to our external influences. When we live in peace, our physical body is at peace and functions normally and in healthy order. But when we are living in strife, anxiousness and worry, our bodies start to malfunction. A good illustration is a car engine that is full of oil and running smoothly on all six or eight cylinders. When the oil gets burning quickly, the cylinders aren’t getting the oil properly and they start missing. Then the missing causes other parts of the engine from functioning and part after part start to fail. So it is with our bodies.

When we are immersed in unrest and strife, our bodies malfunction one part after the other. Here are some results from anxiety and stress: Allergies, acne, all types of heart problems, carpel tunnel, cystic fibrosis, skin disorders, fibromyalgia, gallstones, hiatal hernia, reflux disease, hypertension, irritable bowel syndrome, shingles, stroke, TMJ, ulcerative colitis, and of course, our immune system is weakened so we are prone to all kinds of viruses.

I would suggest that you cast your cares upon the Lord, because He cares for you. When you do this, you will find your life at peace because He is in full control and whatever He does for you will be 100 times better than what you do for yourself.

Confession: From this day forward, I will let God take over all my possessions, my finances, my family, all my circumstances and most of all, my future. God has a wonderful and perfect plan for my life and from now on, I will let Him direct my path.