You cannot serve The Lord Jesus Christ and Mammon.  Mammon represents anything a Christian values more than The Lord, and may include money, fame, status, material possessions, etc.

Value system is an individualistic concept and is greatly determined by one’s virtues or vices. People’s internal conception of what is good, useful, beneficial, desirable or important is entirely their prerogative. More often than not however, values are informed by aspirations, need for relevance, desire to make meaning out of life, want of material possessions and concerns about making ends meet (having food, drink, clothing, shelter etc).

For a Christian, it is expected that the Bible should majorly influence choices made (what is right or wrong) as will be ultimately reflected in actions taken. Jesus Christ recognized the importance of value system in informing our thoughts, words and actions. Little wonder then, He categorically stated in Matthew 6:24b; “…you CANNOT serve God and Mammon.”

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon” Matthew 6:24 NKJV

It’s an all or null situation, ….and understandably so. Except of course we are dealing with the ‘christian’  described in James 1:6 as ‘a wave of the sea driven and tossed by every wind” ; a man who is unstable, unsteady and undecided about his beliefs and value system.

“…for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.” James 1:6b NKJV

The double-minded man described in James 1:6b has his answer from the Lord in the next verse of same scripture…he should not expect to receive anything from The Lord!

The Lord Jesus Christ admonishes us to keep worry far from us. Do not worry about food, drink, clothes and any other drivers of our decisions and choices. The Lord takes care of the jobless birds of the air, feeds and nourishes them. He clothes (most beautifully) the lilies and grass of the field.

The way I see it, worry and faith seem to be at extreme ends of a spectrum for a Christian. If you have faith in the ability and willingness of The Lord to meet all your needs, you won’t worry and your value system is unlikely to be twisted from Christ’s expectations.

So have faith in God for your daily needs!

Because the quotation; “be anxious for nothing…” emanates from the Bible, I can categorically assert that anxiety is not from God.

God is not schizophrenic to command us not to be anxious, and then turn around and bathe us with fear and trembling at life’s issues.

This then begs the question; what’s the source of anxiety?

If I could be honored with a one-on-one discussion with you, you’d most likely identify the sources of your worries as; ‘what to eat, what to wear, school fees, children, etc…

So is God unaware of these sources of worry and anxiety?

No He’s not, and we see in Luke 12:29, that God has us fully covered!

“And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind”.

So why doesn’t God give us everything we need all at once?

The Bible records that the Israelites failed to learn the simple lesson of trusting God for each day’s need. God supplied their daily meals (meat at twilight and bread for the morning). And God specifically commanded them not to take more than was necessary for each day (Exodus 16:19).

No left overs!  Those that refused to listen to the word of the Lord were greeted by worms by the next morning.

I believe that God is committed to providing all our daily needs.

Jesus directs us to pray thus; “give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11) or “give us day by day our daily bread” (Luke 11:3).

To successfully live as God desires of us, Psalm 3:5 is highly recommended 🙂 ;

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding”.

Little wonder then that in Philippians 4:6, apostle Paul provides the antidote to anxiety and worry;

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God”.

And in Psalm 112:7, we see the man who will not be afraid or anxious of evil tidings coming to him;

“he will not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord”.

Let me just note at this point, that God is not against savings or planning, neither is He against against us having more than enough.

Proverbs 13:22 tells us that;

“A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children…”

And also, Paul tells Timothy (and us) in 1 Timothy 5:8 that;

“…if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever“.

So God expects us to save, and to have more than enough to give to others. Therefore, the principle we should walk away with, reading this article is that;  we need to learn to trust God and not be anxious. When we trust Him to provide every day’s need, we display our assurance in His sufficiency for all times.

But you know, honestly, it can be pretty difficult  to live a ‘worry-less’ life as Christians. It’s almost as if we’re lazy and irresponsible, so we try to figure out everything, and this gets us really worked up!

Living a worry-free life is learnt

Sometime, not too long ago, the Lord started teaching me how not to be anxious. Having stayed out of work for almost a month because of ill-health, I decided to just ask for my annual leave since I still required more time to fully recuperate. But my boss wouldn’t hear of it. A few days after putting in my annual leave request for approval, a memo appeared from somewhere stating that leave requests must be turned in at least a month before the due date.  I was more upset than disappointed for more than one reason…..

As you can imagine, I thought my boss incited that memo, so I spent hours wondering and worrying over why he’d do such. But God didn’t want me losing sleep over that.

At some point, I heard clearly in my spirit; ‘Grace, what exactly do you want?  I realized then, that I hadn’t even said any word of prayer about the issue…..

Immediately I responded that I just needed approval for my leave. Then I heard again; ‘you’ll get your letter’.

I stopped myself from wondering how that would work out.

The next morning, I managed to get to the office, and headed for the head of administration’s office to ask about my letter. The officer in charge confirmed my fears; my boss refused to approve my leave request.

My file was called for just to confirm to me that my boss hadn’t appended his signature. And truly, he didn’t.

The interesting part though, is that somehow, to everyone’s surprise, my leave letter had been typed, signed and kept safely in my file!!! It fell out as we searched for the page my boss was supposed to have signed. The head of administration simply handed it to me, saying she’ll pretend she didn’t see it.

I got my letter without sweat as the spirit of God had spoken to me. Praise God.

I refused to respond to flesh and didn’t go flash the letter at my boss! I didn’t even discuss it. He was served a copy by the administration department.

 

We ask today, that you teach us Lord to trust you fully each day. Anxiety and worry will have no place in our lives. Amen.

 

Except otherwise stated, all Bible quotations are from the New King James Version (NKJV).