We Need To Try To Recognise Why We Feel Anxious.
Are they real or imagined threats in my thoughts? “We need to try to isolate them in our thinking, to get them into perspective.
Proverbs 4:23-25 ERV. “Above all, be careful what you think because your thoughts control your life. Don’t bend the truth or say things that you know are not right. Keep your eyes on the path, and look straight ahead.” This translation differs from many other modern translations such as the NIV, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” However it means the same but places an emphasis on the power of thoughts in human hearts. They do control our moods and our behaviour.
King David in praying a prayer of openness to God saw the need for God to reveal to him any anxious thoughts God saw in His searching, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. ” Psalm 139:23-24. David wanted to be free of anxious thoughts and so must we. He looked to God who knows the source of all things and why we think as we do.
How to control your thoughts biblically? Here are four suggested steps to follow:
1]. Identify The Troubling Thought And Bring It Captive To Christ
2Cor 10:5 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
We note that “we” humans are to demolish negative thoughts and untruths that seek to nullify the power, wisdom and love of God. We do so by taking every thought captive to obey Christ and not giving it any ongoing place in our minds if it is opposed to Him and His purposes for His children. We need to remember that Satan seeks to bring condemnation into our thinking to make us feel guilty, wretched and useless. However, God by His Holy Spirit brings conviction of our sin to free us of condemnation as we confess our sin and receive His liberating forgiveness.
2]. Try To Discern The Source Of The Thought
Php 4:8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. “Think” here is in the present continuous tense, ie., keep on thinking on these positive things. St Paul saw the need for humans to take control of their thinking processes and to focus on the positive, not the negative. It is very easy for us humans to focus on the negative things we see around us and live in a world of criticism, judgmentalism and “sour grapes.” Setting our minds to reflect on the praiseworthy things of life can release us from that negativity.
3]. Replace The Negative Thought With God’s Truth.
We need to ask God to break the power of negative thinking or unhelpful thoughts in our minds and to help us to replace them with positive truths from His word.
2Cor 10:3 “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”
Obsessive thoughts causing anxiety may be like strongholds in our minds that Jesus can destroy as we bring them to Him. Most believers can remember at one time thinking that Jesus Christ was irrelevant in today’s world. However, when they were awakened by the Holy Spirit to understand that Jesus is THE TRUTH, that mindset was broken and He became the focus of their lives.
4]. Thank Him For The Victory He Is Helping You Achieve As You Do This Exercise.
Thanksgiving is the means by which we recognise that the victories we attain owe their origin to Jesus and are not the result of our superior human thinking. They come from our faith in Him. Our thanksgiving can begin from the moment we have presented our situation in faith to Him, for as He promised in the verses below, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” We can believe that the answer to our prayers is immediate but will be delivered in God’s timing, not ours, “and it will be yours.” The answer is certain but in God’s time. “Will be” is future tense meaning the answer can come at any time after we have prayed.
We see that in the healing of the ten lepers. We read, Luk 17:12 ‘As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.‘ The answer to their request for mercy came as they obediently moved away from Jesus geographically and in time, to go to the priests. We sometimes need to keep on thanking God for the answer to our prayers before the answer actually comes. As Jesus promised, “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. 23 “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:22-24.
It may be helpful to recognise where our negative thoughts come from.
The Origin Of Negative Thoughts
The first source is of course Satan or the devil.
He has been a liar from the very beginning and seeks to bring humans under his control. We see that back in Genesis chapter 3 where he tried to deceive Eve that God was a liar. He suggested that God hadn’t told Eve about the truth of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He implied that she was a victim of His untruthfulness. That is still a strategy that he uses in today’s world to cause distrust and division. He and his human agents try to poison the minds of humans so that they see themselves as victims, victims of other people who appear more privileged than themselves. This is a massive problem in today’s world . [See my last blog No.565 on this website www.jimholbeck.blog]
Satan is called the Accuser, a term found in 2 words in the New Testament. He is called “diabolos” [from dia = through or against and ballo = I throw. He is the one who throws accusations against us to bring us under his control.
Mat 4:1 “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” [diabolos].
The second word is katēgōr from katēgoreō = to speak against, accuse.
“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser [kategor] of our brothers and sisters, who accuses [katēgoreō] them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.” Rev 12:10.
Satan can use the negative comments to which we have been exposed, to work in our minds to bring doubt and discouragement and often a feeling of wretchedness. But Christ can bring us release from Satan’s paralysing thoughts.
The Origin Of Other Negative Thoughts
Thoughts may come into our minds from memories which surface of conversations we have had or heard throughout our lifetimes. Or even from our own unspoken reflections on life.
When thoughts come into our minds such as “You’re a loser!” or “You’ll never make good” or “You’re too ugly to get someone to love you” or similar phrases, they can cripple us emotionally. Or even worse when the words come through the human lips of those who seem to dislike us. Satan is using people to bring us down and we become more anxious when it happens to us personally.
Such thoughts need to be taken captive to Jesus and He can break their power over us.
Or it may be that over time we have been hard on ourselves and said things like, “I’m not a very loving person so I could never be in a loving relationship.” Or “I’m not very bright. I couldn’t do that job.” Rather we need to act on God’s truth as St Paul expressed it, “ I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Php 4:13. In other words we can fulfil God’s purpose for our lives as we walk in His will and allow Him to empower us. In the words of the apostle Paul, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.“Philippians 2:12-13. God gives us both the willingness and the ability to work in a way that pleases Him.
Perhaps the best advice about getting rid of anxiety comes from St Paul in Philippians 4:6-9, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.’
The advice is to present or make known [gnōrizō = to make known, reveal, declare] our requests to God through prayer, petition and thanksgiving. If we do so honestly and thoroughly, there will be a consequence. That is, that “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
[“Guard = phroureō = to keep watch; to guard, watch with a military guard.] Philippi as a Roman garrison city had no need to feel anxious, for the garrison troops protected the city from all those who would seek to do the citizens harm. Likewise the peace of God would protect those who received that peace by handing over their requests to God. Anxiety was gotten rid of by handing the situations over to God. [And not immediately taking them back!]
Victory over anxiety could be maintained by setting one’s mind on the positives of life such as “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
They could also be inspired by St Paul’s own example, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:9.
If the believers in Philippi were to live according to St Paul’s advice, they would experience inwardly the peace of God and have the assurance that the God of peace would be with them. Anxieties would cease! The same truth applies for us today if we follow these steps to become whole!
Blog No.566 posted on Friday 31 January 2025.
holbeck 
566. FACING ANXIETY. Steps To Freedom
We Need To Try To Recognise Why We Feel Anxious.
Are they real or imagined threats in my thoughts? “We need to try to isolate them in our thinking, to get them into perspective.
Proverbs 4:23-25 ERV. “Above all, be careful what you think because your thoughts control your life. Don’t bend the truth or say things that you know are not right. Keep your eyes on the path, and look straight ahead.” This translation differs from many other modern translations such as the NIV, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” However it means the same but places an emphasis on the power of thoughts in human hearts. They do control our moods and our behaviour.
King David in praying a prayer of openness to God saw the need for God to reveal to him any anxious thoughts God saw in His searching, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. ” Psalm 139:23-24. David wanted to be free of anxious thoughts and so must we. He looked to God who knows the source of all things and why we think as we do.
How to control your thoughts biblically? Here are four suggested steps to follow:
1]. Identify The Troubling Thought And Bring It Captive To Christ
2Cor 10:5 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
We note that “we” humans are to demolish negative thoughts and untruths that seek to nullify the power, wisdom and love of God. We do so by taking every thought captive to obey Christ and not giving it any ongoing place in our minds if it is opposed to Him and His purposes for His children. We need to remember that Satan seeks to bring condemnation into our thinking to make us feel guilty, wretched and useless. However, God by His Holy Spirit brings conviction of our sin to free us of condemnation as we confess our sin and receive His liberating forgiveness.
2]. Try To Discern The Source Of The Thought
Php 4:8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. “Think” here is in the present continuous tense, ie., keep on thinking on these positive things. St Paul saw the need for humans to take control of their thinking processes and to focus on the positive, not the negative. It is very easy for us humans to focus on the negative things we see around us and live in a world of criticism, judgmentalism and “sour grapes.” Setting our minds to reflect on the praiseworthy things of life can release us from that negativity.
3]. Replace The Negative Thought With God’s Truth.
We need to ask God to break the power of negative thinking or unhelpful thoughts in our minds and to help us to replace them with positive truths from His word.
2Cor 10:3 “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”
Obsessive thoughts causing anxiety may be like strongholds in our minds that Jesus can destroy as we bring them to Him. Most believers can remember at one time thinking that Jesus Christ was irrelevant in today’s world. However, when they were awakened by the Holy Spirit to understand that Jesus is THE TRUTH, that mindset was broken and He became the focus of their lives.
4]. Thank Him For The Victory He Is Helping You Achieve As You Do This Exercise.
Thanksgiving is the means by which we recognise that the victories we attain owe their origin to Jesus and are not the result of our superior human thinking. They come from our faith in Him. Our thanksgiving can begin from the moment we have presented our situation in faith to Him, for as He promised in the verses below, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” We can believe that the answer to our prayers is immediate but will be delivered in God’s timing, not ours, “and it will be yours.” The answer is certain but in God’s time. “Will be” is future tense meaning the answer can come at any time after we have prayed.
We see that in the healing of the ten lepers. We read, Luk 17:12 ‘As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.‘ The answer to their request for mercy came as they obediently moved away from Jesus geographically and in time, to go to the priests. We sometimes need to keep on thanking God for the answer to our prayers before the answer actually comes. As Jesus promised, “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. 23 “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:22-24.
It may be helpful to recognise where our negative thoughts come from.
The Origin Of Negative Thoughts
The first source is of course Satan or the devil.
He has been a liar from the very beginning and seeks to bring humans under his control. We see that back in Genesis chapter 3 where he tried to deceive Eve that God was a liar. He suggested that God hadn’t told Eve about the truth of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He implied that she was a victim of His untruthfulness. That is still a strategy that he uses in today’s world to cause distrust and division. He and his human agents try to poison the minds of humans so that they see themselves as victims, victims of other people who appear more privileged than themselves. This is a massive problem in today’s world . [See my last blog No.565 on this website www.jimholbeck.blog]
Satan is called the Accuser, a term found in 2 words in the New Testament. He is called “diabolos” [from dia = through or against and ballo = I throw. He is the one who throws accusations against us to bring us under his control.
Mat 4:1 “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” [diabolos].
The second word is katēgōr from katēgoreō = to speak against, accuse.
“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser [kategor] of our brothers and sisters, who accuses [katēgoreō] them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.” Rev 12:10.
Satan can use the negative comments to which we have been exposed, to work in our minds to bring doubt and discouragement and often a feeling of wretchedness. But Christ can bring us release from Satan’s paralysing thoughts.
The Origin Of Other Negative Thoughts
Thoughts may come into our minds from memories which surface of conversations we have had or heard throughout our lifetimes. Or even from our own unspoken reflections on life.
When thoughts come into our minds such as “You’re a loser!” or “You’ll never make good” or “You’re too ugly to get someone to love you” or similar phrases, they can cripple us emotionally. Or even worse when the words come through the human lips of those who seem to dislike us. Satan is using people to bring us down and we become more anxious when it happens to us personally.
Such thoughts need to be taken captive to Jesus and He can break their power over us.
Or it may be that over time we have been hard on ourselves and said things like, “I’m not a very loving person so I could never be in a loving relationship.” Or “I’m not very bright. I couldn’t do that job.” Rather we need to act on God’s truth as St Paul expressed it, “ I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Php 4:13. In other words we can fulfil God’s purpose for our lives as we walk in His will and allow Him to empower us. In the words of the apostle Paul, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.“Philippians 2:12-13. God gives us both the willingness and the ability to work in a way that pleases Him.
Perhaps the best advice about getting rid of anxiety comes from St Paul in Philippians 4:6-9, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.’
The advice is to present or make known [gnōrizō = to make known, reveal, declare] our requests to God through prayer, petition and thanksgiving. If we do so honestly and thoroughly, there will be a consequence. That is, that “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
[“Guard = phroureō = to keep watch; to guard, watch with a military guard.] Philippi as a Roman garrison city had no need to feel anxious, for the garrison troops protected the city from all those who would seek to do the citizens harm. Likewise the peace of God would protect those who received that peace by handing over their requests to God. Anxiety was gotten rid of by handing the situations over to God. [And not immediately taking them back!]
Victory over anxiety could be maintained by setting one’s mind on the positives of life such as “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
They could also be inspired by St Paul’s own example, “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:9.
If the believers in Philippi were to live according to St Paul’s advice, they would experience inwardly the peace of God and have the assurance that the God of peace would be with them. Anxieties would cease! The same truth applies for us today if we follow these steps to become whole!
Blog No.566 posted on Friday 31 January 2025.
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About Jim Holbeck
Once an Industrial Chemist working for the Queensland Government but later an Anglican minister in Brisbane, Armidale and Sydney. Last position for eighteen years before retirement in 2006 was as the Leader of the Healing Ministry at St Andrew's Cathedral Sydney.