No More Worrying

Photo by Derrick Lee

We are servants of God, doing everything in our power and His to serve His will.  As long as we try our best and trust in God, He will be pleased with us and will use us.  This is what I believed, but there is a flaw in this mentality.  What happens when we fail to try?  Will He still love us then?  When we are chasing the things of this world, and tell Him He is not enough, does He still love us?

To answer this, we must look at the source of our salvation.  Ephesians 2:8 says,”For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,”  Thankfully, this means that God still loves us even when we fail Him.  And this also means that all of your failures and rebellions in your past do not change the way He loves you or how He can use you now.

We have been set free, and the devil has no power over us, for he has been defeated.  The amazing thing about grace is that it means that we have been set free, and we are no longer slaves to sin.  I love how Mike Donehey puts it when he says,”One of the most amazing parts of the gospel is just the knowledge that you don’t have to sin anymore.”  This brings great comfort because it lets us know that we can stop sinning.  Those habits hold no power over you.

So this reassures us that we can stop sinning, but we still worry, thinking,”What if I don’t stop, what if I never live up to God’s plans?”  Thankfully, we are not in control of the future; God is in control, and He tells us in Jeremiah 29:11, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'”

God truly cares about us, and He wants to see us live free of sin and shame.  Likewise, God doesn’t want us worrying about things that are in His control, as all things are.  In Matthew 6:27,34, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life ?… Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  Trust in God, and know that He is in control.

Because God is in control, we know that even when we screw up, even when we fail Him, we cannot ruin His plans.  Acts 17:25 says,”nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”  It is so amazing how much He loves us, even when we fail, because He is always in control.  To again quote Mike Donehey,”God doesn’t need you, but He wants you….  Your loveliness to God doesn’t rise and fall with your usefulness.”

So, when you begin to worry that you will never accomplish enough, remember that God is not concerned with that, He wants you, just you.  Even though He doesn’t need you, He still wants you, and so you don’t need to worry any more.