Can Christians Prosper In The ‘New Normal’? (Part Three)

Grace Thoughts

Can Christians Prosper In The ‘New Normal’? (Part Three)

Christians around the world are looking for answers to the many challenges facing us. A virus that went global has closed businesses, schools and churches. People have lost jobs and personal rights. Wearing masks is part of a new normal and may be for a long time. Parents and their children are determining how to move forward with attending schools and universities during a pandemic. Claims of racism are flying in all directions. Cities have been under siege. People are divided and despondent. What are God’s people to do in such a time as this?

Here’s another of Paul’s recommendations to Christians –

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:6-7

The Spirit of God knows that Christians get anxious about things, so He gave us something we can about it. We can pray with specificity, purpose and power. That’s important for us to note as we face so many difficulties in our world.

Don’t Worry

Notice the process the Holy Spirit gives us:

Be anxious for nothing
but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God
and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus

God knows things in life can make us anxious. People worry and are sometimes afraid. The words “fear not” and “do not fear” are found scores of times in the Bible. Jesus said those words to His disciples many times –

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Matthew 10:28

“Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
Matthew 10:31

“Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Luke 12:32

“Then Jesus, when He had found a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written: ‘Fear not, daughter of Zion; Behold, your King is coming, Sitting on a donkey’s colt.”
John 12:14-15

Jesus addressed the issue of worry in the middle of His Sermon on the Mount (from John 6:25-34) –

“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
Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing?
Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Excellent advice then and now.

Antidotes To Worry

One of the best places to go to learn about antidotes for worry, fear and anxiety is what the Bible teaches us through the life of King David. You’ll find the details of his life in the Books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, but David’s prayers and praises are memorialized for us in the Psalms. David was honest about his emotions –

“The pangs of death surrounded me, And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me.”
Psalm 18:4-5

King David was also honest about how he learned to trust God in tough situations –

“I sought the Lord, and He heard me, And delivered me from all my fears.”
Psalm 34:4

Prayer. Seeking God with our whole heart, mind and soul. Trusting God even when things look darkest.

Does God answer every prayer, every time, right away? We might think He doesn’t based on experience, even the experience of King David. However, if our concept of prayer is getting what we want every time, right away, we are sorely misinformed about the process of prayer.

How To Pray Specifically

Look back at what Paul wrote the Philippians –

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:6-7

The first step is to be anxious for nothing. Some other ways of saying that are –

“do not be anxious about anything” ESV
“Don’t worry about anything” CSB
“Be careful for nothing” KJV
“Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything” AMPC

Anxiety, worry and fear is part of what happened to humans with the fall into sin –

“Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ So he said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
Genesis 3:9-10

The fact is that you and I will be anxious and worry about things, so why would Paul tell us not to worry? It’s because God wants us to develop a deeper relationship with Him through trust and thanksgiving. God wants to show us how much He loves and cares for us. That leads us to the second step –

“but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God”

Let’s look carefully at four words: prayer, supplication, thanksgiving, requests. They are at the heart of communicating our heart and mind with the Almighty God.

Prayer – προσευχ .. exchange of wishes .. used in a general sense of prayer toward God

Supplication – δέησις .. felt need, entreaty .. used in a specific sense of communicating need

Thanksgiving – εὐχαριστία .. giving of thanks, thankfulness

Requests – αἴτημα .. make a petition, ask

What Paul recommended to the Philippians was a fairly straightforward process —

take your anxiety, fear and worries to God
petition Him in a spirit of thankfulness
petition God with your requests

Then what?

The Surpassing Peace of God

If we think getting things from God is the point of what Paul told the Philippians, we’ve missed the point. The point is relationship with God. He’s our Heavenly Father.

“and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Peace with God! It is a peace that surpasses all understanding. The word surpasses is ὑπερέχω and means ‘to excel, be superior, go beyond.’ Understanding is νοῦς and means ‘mind, reason, intellect, understanding.’

The peace of God we experience from taking our worries to God in prayer will lead to a peace that actually goes beyond our understanding of how such a thing could happen. God can take the things that drive people to deep despair and give His children a peace that cannot be understood by human reasoning.

Jesus made the same promise to His disciples many years earlier, the night before He went to the Cross –

“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
John 14:27

Jesus gives us His peace and it’s not the like anything on this planet. The peace of God will do things in our hearts and minds that no other peace in this world can give us. God’s peace literally goes far beyond anything we could possibly understand based on our earthly experience.

Paul promised that the peace of God will “will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

The word guard is fascinating in this context. It is the Greek word φρουρέω and means ‘mount a military guard, set a garrison around, protect with a sentinel.’ The peace of God that surpasses all understanding sets up a ‘guard’ around our hearts (καρδία) and minds (νόημα). Our hearts (physical heart along with the Greek understanding of καρδία being the seat of emotions and will) and our minds (e.g. thoughts, beliefs, ideas, understanding) will find a supernatural peace with God as we employ these simple steps –

don’t be anxious about anything
instead of being anxious, pray
pray both general and specific prayers
pray in an attitude of thanksgiving for all God has done for us
present specific requests to our Heavenly Father
watch and wait to see how God gives us His gift of peace to surround our hearts and minds and protect us from anxiety, fear and worry

It is when we take those steps that we can experience the next part of God’s gift: the ability to meditate on God’s thoughts –

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.”
Philippians 4:8-9

God knows us better than we know ourselves. He has equipped His children with the supernatural ability to get through anything this world system can throw at us.

Christians face tough times just like everyone else in life, but we have great Source from which we can draw on during tough times. We have an Advocate with the Father in Heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ. We have an Advocate who has taken up residence in our bodies, the Holy Spirit. We are protected on earth and in Heaven.

New Normal? We can not only survive, but thrive as we follow Paul’s simple process to extraordinary peace.

May God bless you richly is our prayer.

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Founder & Director of GraceLife Ministries View all posts by gracelifethoughts

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Can Christians Prosper In The ‘New Normal’? (Part Three)