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Overcoming Anxiety: Lesson #5

Possessing God's Precious Peace

Discipleship Level 2: Reaching Beyond Mediocrity

Paul J. Bucknell

Problem | Broken | Understand | Description | History | Fighting | Steps | Gate

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The Gate Leading us to the Lord's Peace

Does possessing God's peace still seem complicated. Do not be troubled by the number of steps. They can themselves be simplified. Just remember you need to sincerely pray at each and every stage. Perhaps none of us like such humbling conversations, but it is wonderful to get through them and find everything restored back to God's good normal.

Perhaps the best way to describe this process is entering a gate. A gate has two main supports. Without it, one could not enter in. The gate's purpose is to allow a person to go through. When we observe these two foundational points that undergird the whole healing process of worry, we also can go into God's peace.

This whole process of overcoming worry or anxiety as a way of gaining God’s peace which passes all understanding. In other words, it is a peace that the person without the Lord cannot find. God can shake man so easily by knocking the thing man trusts in. If it is broken or seems not to perform as expected, man starts to be very anxious.

God's goal is never only to eliminate worry but to have us place our full trust in Him where we find a wonderful peace that goes beyond our understanding. In this way, we will learn to trust Him for all things and delight in how He so wonderfully provides for us. We will summarize this process with only two points.

The first summary point is to humble yourselves by acknowledging your lack of trust in Him. This prepares your heart to acknowledge your lack of trust in Him, your trust in other things and your general wayward state.

Without going through this stage, one cannot move on. This is another reason why the world cannot lead you to a cure because they disdain this whole concept that anxiety is sin or has anything to do with God. When you look at your own heart or at others out there in the world, notice the distress and troubled eyes. You now know how to start to lead them to God’s peace.

The second point takes you to where you should be. If you only consider the first point of humbling yourself, you will not be able to stay away from worry for long. You will be back in the cesspool of doubting God again.

You need to move on and strengthen your faith in the Lord's gracious and powerful ways. Assert His Lordship. State forth these truths in your heart. Quote verses. Sing songs of praise. I would always suggest to pray aloud and declare how God is faithful. It is often at this point the defenses of the enemy fall. When the light comes in, the enemy of darkness is exposed and disappears.

"Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be make known to God" (Philippians 4:6).

This might seem a bit simplistic but it is the right weapon to fight the foe – faith. Faith is the victory that has overcomes the world. The loss of faith brought the problem in and the presence of faith will escort anxiety out! You believe God will provide despite the impossible situation! Praise God! This concludes what we can say about possessing God's peace, but we want to add some tools that will help you in your evaluation process.

A person needs to be thorough in his dealings with worry. It is much more difficult to handle worry when one is worried. Already by that stage there are other complicating factors.

Summary

The process of overcoming anxiety is not very difficult. For some it might seem to be ridiculously simple so that they think of it as ineffective. Judge for yourself. The problem that most people have is that they simply do not know the source of anxiety and so they can not handle it but only monitor or regulate it. We thank the Lord for directing us to the problem as well as the solution.

The problem of anxiety often shows itself as more complex than it is because of its multifaceted symptoms. They can be very deceptive. They are good in notifying us that anxiety is present, but they can also overwhelm us if we are not careful. A person might become severely depressed and does not feel like they can fulfill certain responsibilities at work or around the home. This causes further fears to arise. Others might show signs of an anxiety attack which seems to paralyze him.

Underneath all of these emotional and physical problems is a spiritual problem. If we rightly supplant the lies that create us to doubt God's character and embrace the truth about ourselves and God, then we will see a great turn around.

Worry comes from
doubting that God can or will provide
for our needs or wants.

Trust comes from
believing that God will timely care
for your needs
no matter how difficult your circumstances might appear.

Observe the lies that sponsor anxiety and discover the peace of God which God's truth brings.

Also look at the free full ten session seminar on overcoming anxiety and finding God's peace. Each step is carefully presented using many colorful graphics and diagrams.

Biblical Foundations for Freedom

Rev. Paul J. Bucknell

info@foundationsforfreedom.net

Scriptures quoted from the New American Standard Bible unless noted
(C) Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1988