Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 91. Freedom From Anxiety Part 3 w/ Paul Tautges

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91. Freedom From Anxiety Part 3 w/ Paul Tautges · 4-Freedom Podcast

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Welcome to the for Freedom podcast.
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This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for
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everyday, Christians, with everyday issues.
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Now, here are your hosts John hollifield and Jay sacred.
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Welcome back to the Forefront and podcast.
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We are thrilled to be here with guests today.
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Me and John are excited about going through this month,
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talking through the thought of anxiety and how anxiety can
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cripple us how the Bible gives us help and hope through how we
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can overcome anxiety and we are excited to have Paul couches
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here with us. He just told us that it's
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couches with the teat ouches is how you pronounce it.
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So I've been pronouncing it wrong my entire time of reading
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after it. So it's good that actually know
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how to say that, right? And so we are three.
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I'm as proud that you. You said it right?
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Because I can't tell you how many people we have on our show
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and James does say, this is how we pronounce her name and James
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continues to Miss Brittany. Like Shanna.
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You just kept saying Shana? Yeah, that was a bad one.
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That I think when we met her live John, I still pronounce her
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name wrong. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
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Well, Paul, is he serves as a senior pastor of corn Stone
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community church and Mayfield Heights, Ohio.
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He is a, a CPC member and is also a board member of the
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biblical counseling Coalition Paul.
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We'd like, for you actually to we it's easy and we tend to
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think get distracted with all the list and accomplishments and
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the I know you've written wrote several books and we're going to
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talk about one a little bit today, but and James sort of
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like to think that a Man's family is, sort of like, really
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is, what is his life? God has His main stewardship to.
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So tell us a little bit about yourself, your ministry and your
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family. Yeah, well, thanks so much.
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Well, the Lord graciously saved me in the early months of 1984
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and I had been raised in a man's Works.
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Religion and the Lord graciously opened my eyes to the freedom of
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the gospel and that it wasn't about do do do, but it was about
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what Jesus had already done done.
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Done. And and he began a good work
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that year in 1984 and he's continuing that.
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And so I'm just so amazed every day to know the Lord and to know
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his immense love and care for me and my family.
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So it was a couple months after I got saved in 1984 that I met
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Karen, who then became my wife in 1986 and We then moved away
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to the Kansas City area, where I went to Bible College and and
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she focused on raising our fastest growing family over the
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years. The Lord has blessed us with 10
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children, and five of them are married.
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And so we also have eight grandchildren.
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And so our life is very full, very busy but you know, filled
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with the blessings of God and been involved now on In pastoral
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Ministry for over 30 years and biblical counseling has pretty
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much been a part of the DNA of that Ministry all along.
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That is all credible and you know, you said ten children and
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that's more than me and John have combined to be a pastor and
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I have 10. Children would be definitely big
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balance there and it's great to see that five of them were
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married and you got grandkids. Now, I'm telling you, my man
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doesn't look like he's old enough to have grandkids, right?
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Look like kids. Well, you know, I got my dad's
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aging jeans, my brothers, and I R NV by others because we don't
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look as old as we. We just we just took a new
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family photos this past weekend. And on the way there, my wife
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looked over and she said, James you're you're starting to get a
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lot of white hair on the sides of your head and I said, yeah,
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it's my wife and three kids that I could only appear.
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If you're sitting there wasn't any white hair.
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It's crazy. But well there's our Montauk
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been talking about anxiety. And Paul wrote a, he's done some
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work on this but he also wrote a book in the series.
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For pienaar publishing the 31-day devotionals for life on
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anxiety, knowing God's peace. And so we want to talk about
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this today but I guess the first question, always the first
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question for a book in that kind of thing.
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Is why the reason for writing this?
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Why you writing this and you know, what was the the
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motivation here? Yeah, it was definitely the
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Lord's Providence in preparing me as a person and just my own
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struggles and also just providentially being a part of
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the biblical counseling Coalition.
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I knew that this series was developing and I know the editor
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of the series and so when it came time to find out what the
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topics were, I pitched my my favor toward writing on anxiety,
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I was disappointed at first because if my memory is correct,
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someone else had already been. Chosen or said hey, I want that
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topic. But anyway, in the Lord's
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Providence, that didn't work out and it came to me and I'm so
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thrilled because I've really been a lifelong Warrior even
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when I was a child, but when I became a Christian at the age of
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19, the Lord just began helping me and changing me so much.
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And so, throughout my My Christian life, I've been
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learning and growing more about how anxiety Works in my heart
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and my mind and and how to apply the peace producing truth of
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God's word. So, there's there's some
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background there. However, even in the Lord's
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Providence, also, what led to the writing of this book in
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particular, were some events that took place in 2012, 2013,
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we had some The difficult trials that kind of collided in our
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ministry and in our family and produce some pretty traumatic
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events. That forced me to dig really
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deeply into God's word to deal with my fearful heart.
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And and so as I was working through the scriptures, I found
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that the spirit of God was bringing peace to my heart and
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and I journaled a lot and I know that Journaling then grew into
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the blog posts, which eventually led to the writing of this
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devotional. And it's it's one of those books
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that, you know, I had to write for myself and it's only in the
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Lord's graciousness that he has blessed it in amazing ways.
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And fact it just came out last week, the Spanish edition of
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the, of the book just came out. And so really thrilled about
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that. That's great.
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So it's someone's listen to this part now and they're struggling
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with anxiety. With worry, what would be a good
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definition of working definition that we could use to define what
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is anxiety. What is worried?
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How do we Define this in a Biblical mindset?
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And let me come at it from a variety of angles rather than
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giving, you know, maybe one sentence as a definition but
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because you know, we talked about anxiety so much It's
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pretty much a natural part of our conversation, but defining,
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it isn't isn't all that simple. It's like to say it's like
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trying to nail Jello to the wall.
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You know, it's just really, really hard to do.
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It's an emotion anxiety. Definitely is an emotion, but
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it's more than that. It's more than a feeling it.
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Often includes a physical reaction, but it's more than
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that as well. And so, when we think about
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anxiety, you know what it is. I'm driven to the scriptures.
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And that's, that's where I ended up.
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You know, what just searching. Okay, what does God's word have
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to say about anxiety? And I found that in the New
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Testament, there are two different.
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But related words, that refer to this experience that we call
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anxiety. They combined the noun care with
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a verb, which means basically to draw in different directions or
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to distract. So I like to say it this way,
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that anxiety. 80 is, is to have a distracting care to have our
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minds and our hearts Torn Between Two Worlds.
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So to speak and we see this in Jesus warning about the Thorns
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choking out, the word of God. Because these Thorns, he says
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are the cares of the world and the chairs in there which is in
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the pleasures of this life. They they choked out.
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Our faith. And so these anxious cares that
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we have are typically tied to our Earthly lives.
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Most often temporal, you know, not Eternal.
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So it's um, it's where we have our, our mental energy divided,
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our spiritual vision, gets clouded by these, by these
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anxious cares. And remember tempted, then to
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just keep Mind and our heart just focused on the here.
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And now instead of the future, which is Promised, but not yet.
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And so it's that it's that pulling a party internally.
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And you can even feel that, you know, if either one of your our
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listeners today, you know, if they experience anxiety
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especially at heightened levels, they know that this, there's
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this Ur feeling of kind of being pulled in different directions
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and as a result of that then it diverts our attention from what
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is most important when I'm anxious you know I might eyes
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are locked in on only what I can see right now at this moment
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focused on the horizontal, the things of the world rather than
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rather than things of God. And that's where I I find so
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much help in the scriptures especially Jesus, Sermon on the
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Mount in Matthew 26. We're he he builds on that and
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uses that word cares in numerous times numerous ways and and
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numerous times tells us don't be anxious. so, I find Just find
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that the scriptures treat anxiety as a very normal common,
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human thing. And, and therefore God in the
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revelation of himself, in the word, he provides what we need
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to work through those times. I love that perspective because
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I think James and I have both seen maybe, I don't know we've
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and and there's some of our listeners have experienced
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within the church culture. Just being made to feel like if
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you know there's maybe you're not saved if you if you're
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experiencing anxiety and they'll take verses from like from
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poultices, be anxious for nothing or or or Matthew.
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I think it's seven where Jesus talks about what not to worry
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and, and even preachers will preach that and then make them
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feel a guilt. A tremendous guilt for even
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experiencing anxiety. But I love your perspective of
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just like know if we look at this, the Bible is actually
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dealing with this that this is a very real present reality that
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we will experience times. Yeah.
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Well and even on that, same thought, John, I'm just
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yesterday in our, Good News Club with our kids, in our local
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elementary school, our memory verse was first Peter 5:7 cast,
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all your cares on him before deteriorate.
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You know that that was what we were teaching them and this This
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is the thought of we're gonna have cares.
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We're going to be bogged life and so what we do with those
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cares and we're going to get to it a little bit, I'm getting
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ahead of myself. What do we do?
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We cast them on Jesus. He takes those kids from us
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because we can get bogged down. We can begin to just look at the
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here and now and not at the future of what's going on.
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So, yeah, great, great stuff there.
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Paul help us with a little bit of a, how we should view this.
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We want to give some hope and help.
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Help in just a second. But how should we view this?
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Because I think there's a lot of confusion of is is anxiety.
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Appropriate is anxiety, like something.
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You're always going to live with as anxiety, something that you
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need to. You know, you're going to have
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to take medicine for is anxieties a sin.
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There's a lot of different voices and the church outside
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the church. That there's nothing.
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There can be a lot of confusion out of this and I know it's
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going to be difficult to sort of like sum it up in just one
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answer on a quick podcast. But I mean, yeah, maybe help us
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frame our worldview. A Biblical worldview around
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that. Sure.
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Yeah, anxiety. Definitely can be a complicated
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issue, and we shouldn't we shouldn't make it simplistic.
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And, and even, you know, tell people, some of the things that,
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you know, you've already mentioned that.
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It's not really helpful because people know what what real life
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is like. And but but it is a complex
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thing involving really both physical and spiritual.
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You know, we are, we are body and soul, and that's how God
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made us. And so, there are some that said
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that suggests, that disordered anxiety is a purely physical
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issue. And then there are those who
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remain firm that it's strictly a Shoe that must be repented of
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that. It that it's got to be the
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result of some underlying sin but I just don't really see it
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that way. I see the balance of biblical
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wisdom directing us to consider the issue in a more holistic
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manner. As a both hand, rather than an
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either or the line between sin and suffering.
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We want the line between sin and suffering, to be always very
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clear. But it really isn't that way
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most of the time in our Christian lives and certainly
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there are times where we know, okay, you know, I brought this
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on myself because of this sin but but you know, most of our
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Christian lives. It's sin and suffering mixed
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together in somewhat of a foggy way.
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And so, I think that it's better to approach this this issue of
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anxiety. As a both and rather than
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either, or in other words, you know, it's not either a bodily
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malfunction or a sin in the heart.
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It's really a mixture of both. In fact, that's really how the
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Bible Paints. The picture of it of anxiety.
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There are so many scriptures that uncover the the anxiety
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that is part of Human Experience.
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They shed light on the get that anxiety has on our bodies and,
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and vice versa. And they help us to redirect our
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minds eye. So, to speak to the Lord, and
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into his promises where we find security and we find we find
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peace. And in the early part of the
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devotional, as I'm working through, you know, kind of
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defining anxiety. I bring to light up numerous
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Biblical examples of where you've got anxiety.
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That is right alongside physical afflictions.
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And and even in the Bible you see you see sometimes there's
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their physical issues that are provoking spiritual
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complications, and then there are spiritual issues that are
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then provoking physical complications.
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And so I I just don't really think it's helpful to say it's
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either or and this I had, you know, I really had to come to
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this understanding through some really, really difficult times.
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Because frankly guys, you know, I used to be part of that that
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that mentality that said, okay anxiety is is always a sin and
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it's always your fault and it's always something that you I've
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done, it's always something you should feel guilty about and and
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there's no place for involvement of the body and no place or any
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involvement of medication. And and God had to take me
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through extremely difficult trials to bring me to the place
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where I had to face More of a biblically holistic reality,
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which was, you know, twice in six months.
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I was in the ER with what I believed was heart attack.
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I mean, I had every symptom of a heart attack and it was actually
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it was something ended up being being something called.
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Broken heart syndrome is what Mayo Clinic refers to as and and
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basically it's a it's a stress-induced condition so that
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that mimics a heart attack and for a brief period of time.
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My doctor actually said, you know, I don't really want to go
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down this route, but we really do need to, to do something to,
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to prevent further damage to your body.
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And so I was I agreed to take an anxiety medication for a short
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period of time. It was not as helpful to me as
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other believers. I know who have been helped, my
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body didn't react well at all and so that was a very short
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term. It actually made my anxiety
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worse, but I've got biblical counseling friends who have had
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the same struggles that I've had and they've been helped.
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The short to medium term use of a medication.
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And I think the wait for us to look at this, These these
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medications that are available to us today are there never the
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full solution, right? And they're never going to deal
20:13
with the actual spiritual issues that God wants us to address in
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our hearts in the ways that he wants us to grow.
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But for some believers, they can be a help.
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They can be a temporary help to come alongside them to calm them
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down and get control of the situation enough whereby they
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can process The the biblical Council the biblical truth that
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they're receiving and respond to God's word in a way then that
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leads to more of a lasting pattern of Peace.
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Yeah. So I hope that's making sense
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but it does for me trying to. Yeah it totally does for me and
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it's helpful. I never unlike you I never
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really dealt with this until I became a Pastor Mike, I seem
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like stepping into that and even the circumstances of stepping
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into that like it opened up a new world and then starting
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counseling regularly and I feel like I have made the biggest
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mistake of my life and becoming a Biblical counsellor because I
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have this anxiety of going into the session after the session.
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It's just like consuming, I'm like I'm crazy.
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I'll tell you what helped me a lot was I was listening to Ernie
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Baker, teach a session and he talked about a period of his
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life. It was fairly recent and he said
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for six years, he had this anxiety over his counseling
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cases. That was really deteriorated
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deteriorating his health at the same time.
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He had that helped me so much. It's sort of like the first
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Corinthians, 10:13. Principal, you know, there's
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someone else has gone through this here, not connect C, and
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that kind of thing. And it gave me also hope that,
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you know, hey, I need to return to the source and and to the
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scriptures and And find, you know, truth that that is just
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encouraging my heart and stuff, but I did like that because I
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was meditating a lot for a while on this subject of anxiety
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thinking, okay, what is the source, what is the source?
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And I thought, like I had pinpointed like the one source
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but whenever I read this last year when you spend like 99 days
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I said nine chapters but nine chapters but it's the not the
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first nine days talking about all of the possible sources or
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possible causes that this can stem from a That was really good
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for me to look at. And yeah, I think what's so
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important for us. John, those of us who are in
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pastoral Ministry we we were in pastoral Ministry first because
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we sense a calling from God. But secondly because we love
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people and we love helping people and and it's easy for us
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as pastors at least for me. I fell into this for a while,
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too. To kind of fall into a Fix-It
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mentality, you know, the role of the counselor, the role of the
23:08
pastor's to fix other people's problems.
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And you know what, God had to bring me to the point of place
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where I realized, you know, I've got problems, I can on my own
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that I can't even fix, you know? And and, and so it's helped me
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to be become more gracious with the people that I ministered to.
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But it's also helped me to be okay with the idea of They're
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being mystery in in the relationship between Body and
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Soul. We are created Body and Soul its
23:41
weight. The way God designed us.
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And there's something mysterious about that.
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And so in our Ultra clinical world, you know, that wants to
23:51
be able to identify and label everything we can say, you know
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what, it's enough for me to know that I am fearfully and
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wonderfully made in God's image. Age and there's no way I can
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even begin to understand what that fully means.
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But I do have the very Life, Giving word of my Creator in
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scripture and and he will in his word, he will speak his words.
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Gently into the innermost parts of my being so that I become
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progressively more like Jesus, which, of course, is his goal
24:31
for for every believer. Ever.
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So he is just remembering we're Body and Soul together.
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Always. Yeah.
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And so regardless of what physical elements might
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contribute to a person's anxiety, I have come to the
24:47
conclusion that every mental or emotional struggle, that we
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experience is a god-given opportunity to develop our
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faith. And whether we are anxious today
25:00
or not, our souls are always in need of the ministry of God's
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Grace, and Truth by his Spirit, through his word.
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That's great. That's good.
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Well, for sake of time, let's move on to this last.
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How can we offer a practical biblical help for those who
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maybe someone comes to you and is struggling with something
25:23
anxiety? Worry.
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What are some ways that you helped in the counseling room?
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Or some things that you do to give them that peace that only
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God can give. Yeah, I would say probably the
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number one means of peace that that I have received from God,
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is through his word, It Is by meditating on his word and the
25:46
second would be prayer. So let me just begin.
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Just briefly, give you one example of what I mean, by
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meditating on God's word. I mean not just reading
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scripture. But actually interacting with it
26:00
because the word of God is alive.
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In fact, it's the only living book of my planet.
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And so, and as Believers, we have the author of scripture
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living inside of us. So as we open the word of God,
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the Holy Spirit Promises to the minister that word to our hearts
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and and I think that most of us as Believers probably just read
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the Bible too quickly and we don't just we don't read slowly
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and and over and over and do what the Bible calls meditate on
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God's word to think deeply about it.
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And and so one of the passages that of course, is transformed
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my thinking and even my level of peace is the Matthew 6, passage
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where words, the longest passage of scripture dealing with the
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topic of anxiety where Jesus teaches us.
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And it's interesting because Jesus doesn't just say, stop
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being anxious. And then, you know, move on
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here. He does say that.
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He tells us don't be anxious, but but the context in and
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through and around those commands is it's just so rich
27:12
with god-centered truth or by he's constantly saying look, you
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know, look at the birds, look at the flowers, look at the fields,
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your heavenly father cares for you.
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And so he He says don't let worry distract you from focusing
27:33
on the love of your heavenly father for you that if you
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meditate and focus on how much God truly loves you in Christ,
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that love will actually then put away that that anxiety.
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And so Jesus, you know, directly links are spiritual Focus to the
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level of our experience with anxiety and so over and over.
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He's he's telling us, you know, look somewhere else, don't be
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anxious, but look somewhere else, look to the Eternal
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matters. And of course, that passage
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ends. Kind of, in a, in a climax are
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in verse 33 which, you know, seek ye first, the kingdom of
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God and all these things will be added unto you, which is his way
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of saying, shift the focus of your heart.
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To the Lord to the heavenly father.
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The Indescribable love that he has for you and his promise to
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care for you and provide for you.
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And that will put your heart at peace.
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If Paul does the same thing in Romans 8, you know, where he, he
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says, well, God gave us his son, mean what is there that he
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wouldn't give to us, you know, if God gave to us The Ultimate
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Gift, which is his son, then why am I personalizes?
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Why am I worried that about this and about this.
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And that God is not going to come through for me.
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On this. If he already gave to me his one
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and only begotten, loved Son to redeem me to rescue me to begin
29:22
to remake me into His Image, what in the world, you know,
29:27
should should shift me away from just relishing in that love.
29:33
And so that's what I mean by meditating on God's word is just
29:37
slowly reading it over. And over and asking asking
29:42
questions of the text and let thing letting the spirit then
29:45
use the text to ask questions of my heart.
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Like okay so what does Jesus say about the Heavenly Father's?
29:53
Love For Me. You know and and then there's
29:58
this back and forth conversation with the word of God and and my
30:02
heart exposing my fears. And, you know, all sinful fear
30:12
is rooted in some remnant unbelief.
30:17
In our hearts. Since why?
30:19
Jesus says, oh, ye of little faith.
30:21
Because until we see him face to face, we're going to be
30:26
continuing to grow in our trust in him.
30:33
So I would say, get into God's word and and find those passages
30:39
of scripture that are just rich with the promises of God and and
30:46
spend time. Just meditating on those and,
30:49
and journaling about what you're learning in those passages.
30:53
That's what I mean by interacting, with, with God's
30:56
word that then leads naturally into that second priority, which
31:01
is prayer because what I have learned to do over the years,
31:06
probably the last ten, ten years or so.
31:10
Is pray more scripture than I've ever prayed before?
31:15
So after I've worked through a passage, what I'll do then is
31:19
I'll pray through that passage and I'll personalize it you know
31:24
and I'll say you know Lord you you you've told me here that you
31:29
you already know all of my needs and you love me more than you
31:33
love. Any other part of your creation,
31:36
more than the animals more than the birds more than the flowers.
31:40
And you will meet my needs. And so I'm internalizing That
31:46
Word by praying through it, but then the other aspect of prayer
31:51
that I think is really important is asking people to pray with
31:57
you not simply for you. I remember at a crisis moment.
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Back in that time period, I was referring to, I reached out to
32:08
some brothers in the church and I just said, would you just come
32:12
over to our house and would you pray with my wife and me?
32:17
I know that I can just ask you to pray for me anytime, but I
32:23
actually need you in my living room with me.
32:28
Praying, For me and with me and I think that that is a ministry
32:35
that's neglected in our churches.
32:37
Today it's something that our elders were trying to grow in.
32:43
We're trying to change that. We're trying to stop ourselves
32:46
like on a Sunday morning after the service or before the
32:49
service. We're trying to stop ourselves
32:51
from saying I'll pray for you this week after somebody share
32:55
something with us. Instead will say can we just bow
32:58
our heads right here? Now, and pray.
33:02
And while there's all this other stuff going on in the foyer or,
33:06
you know, in the church building, we can just silence
33:10
our Harvest before the Lord right there and pray for the
33:14
sheep that God has entrusted to our care.
33:18
And and I just hope to have to say that I wouldn't know the
33:24
peace inducing power of that. Had God not taken me through a
33:29
crisis of my own and I Learned how incredibly comforting it is,
33:36
to find myself unable to pray, but to have other people praying
33:42
for me. And with me, And, and letting
33:47
the Holy Spirit do as he does, and he says in Romans 8, praying
33:52
for me as well, when I don't know how to pray.
33:55
So those are the two aspects I would say, there's a lot more,
33:59
you know, as far as spiritual disciplines are concerned.
34:02
But if I had to narrow it down to two, I'd say spend regular
34:07
time, feeding on the word of God.
34:10
As the bread, the daily bread that your soul needs.
34:15
And then use that as a springboard for how you talk to
34:18
God about the things that worry. You that's good.
34:22
That's great. And I like that you explain it
34:24
because I think maybe some people have heard oh read your
34:28
Bible and pray and it's just like, you know, that doesn't
34:32
help. But no it's not just picking up
34:36
reading a verse then saying, you know, your your wrote prayer
34:40
before you leave. It's it's, it is really
34:42
communing with God. Those two Avenues.
34:45
Yeah, and I think so many in our church.
34:47
Don't understand how to do that. Yeah I really appreciate you
34:50
explaining that. Well yeah, I mean Jesus defines
34:53
eternal life in John 17. As knowing god this is eternal
34:58
life that you know, God and his son.
35:02
So if you turn a Life Is Knowing God, then then eternal life is
35:07
about a relationship and the only way to cultivate a
35:11
relationship is through. Back and forth communication and
35:17
still scripture is how God speaks to us prayers, how we
35:22
speak back to God. And that is the way we
35:26
strengthen our relationship with him and grow in peace.
35:30
Absolutely, Paul. Before we finish up real
35:34
quickly, we like to ask our guests at the end.
35:38
Do you could you recommend one maybe two resources that you
35:44
think are good resources to go to, for anybody?
35:47
I know we will be linking. This 31-day devotional in the
35:51
show notes but on top of that, what would you recommend?
35:55
Yeah. I highly recommend a little mini
35:58
book written by a pastor and so Southern California called help,
36:02
I'm anxious by Philip de courcey.
36:05
It's it's a very practical exposition of Matthew 6.
36:11
So it's only, you know, 60 pages and it's got kind of homework
36:16
assignments in the, in the back that ways to interact, you know,
36:20
with God's word in regard to anxiety.
36:24
I would also say, I've been really helped the last 10 years
36:28
in particular by The writings of Sinclair Ferguson and he's
36:36
written some things on the Psalms, there's one called
36:40
deserted by God question mark. And he's working through one of
36:44
the Psalms and that that has been particularly helpful to me
36:50
as well. I love Sinclair Ferguson.
36:53
That is the whole Christ, heavy. Excellent.
36:58
It don't outstanding book. Yeah.
37:00
Yeah. Yeah.
37:01
James close us down. Yeah, Paul.
37:04
I appreciate you coming, man. This has been a fantastic time
37:07
for me and I know that our listeners.
37:10
I know for me and John's experience, I know this is going
37:12
to help. We I think so often you hit the
37:16
nail on the head when you said we feel the guilt that we
37:19
struggle with anxiety and there is this car could be some guilt
37:25
but some of it is based on other stresses and other things that
37:28
we deal with and so I appreciate you.
37:30
Explain that explain the helps that so often we can get that,
37:34
we forget about this there in the scripture, we forget that g
37:38
it time talking about Jesus's disciples spent time, discussing
37:42
this and it's there in scripture for us to help us to go through
37:47
life, knowing that there is answers in the Bible, there is
37:50
answers that God can give us. So I appreciate you spending
37:53
your time today. I know you're busy and you've
37:55
got a busy schedule this week, but I appreciate you coming out
37:59
and being able to be a part of this.
38:00
Today. Well, it's been a joy Brothers,
38:02
thanks so much. And until next time guys to God,
38:07
be the glory, that healing and the tears fell down my face.
38:17
When I found my beginning. Thanks for listening to the for
38:40
Freedom podcast. If you enjoyed the content of
38:42
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