Colossians 3:23-24 reads:
And whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men. Knowing that from The Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance for you serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
We are commanded to do everything heartily and for God, not for men. This means we are to be thinking and acting for God. We should not serve the purpose of men, and we should not allow ourselves to be taken back by the things that are of men. We should put our focus on God, and let him drive our lives to what he wants them to be.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 reads:
In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
In every thing we do, in every situation, we should give thanks and praise to God. When we are in Christ, we should not think that we have control over the situations in our lives. We should think instead that God is doing what is best for us in our lives. This does not mean we lose our free will, but that our desires and our thoughts and everything we do should be focused, As we read in Colossians, towards what God desires for us.
If we as Christians believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God then we must believe that God has desired us to act accordingly to these two verses. What is more amazing is that the first verse is written by Paul while he was in prison. Imagine now, that you are sitting in prison and you may or may not know what is going to happen for the rest of your life. Perhaps you are going to be thrown into a pit of lions, perhaps you are going to be put to death like Jesus was. Perhaps you are going to spend the rest of your life rotting away in a prison. This is the point Paul was at when he wrote this. Even then he had the strength to realize that whatever happened was God's will, as long as he kept his faith and acted according to what he felt God would want him to do in his life. We may face many situations in our lives, where we have occasion to wonder what is next, what is going to happen, but we are to face these head on, doing things heartily as to the Lord, and not fall into the idea that we have to act as men do.
Yet sometimes we forget, and sometimes we worry! What will I do? Where will my next meal come from? How will I take care of this or that. The great thing about being a Christian is that we do not have to worry about such things. If we remember the two verses ahead then we know that God will take care of us. Still, is there biblical backing for that line of thought?
In Matthew chapter 6 Jesus talks about worry, specifically in verses 25- 34
25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Those are some pretty strong statements by Jesus that discuss worry, and the fact that we should not do it. Jesus tells us that we will be clothed, we will be fed. More so we are commanded to seek the kingdom of God first, and let all the other things fall into place. I personally think this goes well with the first verse we read. Where Paul tells us to do everything heartily ( or happily) and as unto the Lord. Jesus was the son of God, he could have done anything he wanted in this world, he could have had a kingdom that was more glorious than any we have ever encountered on this Earth. He could have riches beyond belief, but instead he spent his time trying to do everything the Father wanted him to do. We must remember this. When we are Christians we are not to act only in our best interests but the interests of those around us, and more importantly and always first the interest of God. If we do that, God will always give us everything we need. So why worry? Why let ourselves fall into the idea that we can do something about the situations we are in? Why argue, fuss, and let ourselves fall into this human trap of thinking we are some how great enough to over come all things? We aren't! We are in fact great enough to follow in the footsteps of the Savior and do all things for God. That includes not worrying. God doesn't want us to worry about things, he doesn't want us to fear that we might not have food, or that we might not have food, or that we might not have clothing, or that we might not have what we want. God give us what we need, and that usually is a lot better than what we want. All we have to do is follow him, seek his kingdom and his glory, because no glory amongst man can be near as wonderful as the glory of God.
Simply put, we are to focus on God, from sun up to sun down, one day at a time doing everything we can in that day to make sure we follow the will, and the word of God. To make sure that everything we do is in his Glory and his Name. We do not need to worry, not for today, not for tomorrow. I once heard a statement from someone it said. Never worry about to tomorrow, God is already there. So if you have worries, just give them up to God, let him take them, and don't pick them back up, don't give them to God and then say.. “Oh wait, I want those back.” Worry causes quite a bit of unhappiness. Which brings us to the second part of this. Remember the name is “Don't worry, be happy”.
Who here knows the story of Job? Job was tormented, he had all his worldly possession taken from him, he had all his children destroyed, he had his body racked with physical pain. In the hardest moment of his life, he was not only attacked by emotional stress of all the loss, but the physical pain that boils and lesions cause. Everyone around him was telling him just to give up. His wife even told him to curse God and Die. How did he respond? He said how can we accept good from God, without also accepting the bad. The Bible tells us that in everything he did, Job did not sin.
Can you imagine the strength and faith it must take to be like Job? To understand that no matter what happens in life we should be thankful, because it is something God is doing for us. Some way God in his wisdom is helping us. As Christians we are supposed to believe this, and if we believe this then we might not like the situation we are in, but we should be happy knowing, trusting, believing that God will bring us out of it.
Who here has read the book of Ecclesiastes? It is my favorite book of the Bible because there is so much wisdom to be gained from reading it. In the very opening chapter the preacher says:
“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
In this instance the word vanity means essentially fruitless. The preacher tells us here that all things are fruitless. If you read the whole book, you learn that he is not talking about one particular thing, he is talking about everything we do on this Earth, that is not done for God. That means every time we are bogged down in trouble and we frown or we worry it is pointless. It does us no good. Instead we should do all things in a manner that is pleasing to the Lord. God doesn't want us to be sad and somber. God wants us to be happy. If we are caught up in our own worldly struggles then we are not focused on God, if we are mired in bad moods or bad thoughts they are not pleasing to the Lord. In all things, we should offer thanks, but we should do it with a smile and a true happiness because we know that God only does for us what is needed, and what is best for our lives.
Psalms 105:3 “Glory in His holy name; Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord! “
John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will[a] have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
Proverbs 16:20 20 “He who heeds the word wisely will find good, And whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he.”
Phillipians 4:4-7
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!
5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
I think we need to take a good hard look at verse 6 here. It says that we are to be anxious ( or worry) for nothing, but in everything we are to be in prayer and supplication. We are to be giving thanks, and we are to let our requests be known to God. If we do that, it says that God will give us peace that passes all understanding, and he will guard our hearts and our minds. So we really shouldn't worry. God is taking care of us, and then we look at verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord, and again I say. Rejoice. You can not rejoice if you are un-happy. Here I think is clear and defined evidence as all the verses we read before were. That God expects us to be happy. I think if we take Phillipians chapter 4 verses 4-7 the Bible tells us.. Don't worry, Be happy!
