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Five

Freedom from Anxiety

Week 45 | Section 54g

Mat 6:19-7:6 Luke 6:37-42

sermon on the mount
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Turing our eyes from greed and love of the world we can experience true freedom.  Anxiety is stirred within us as we crave such temporal things. Oddly once gained they lose their luster and another temporal desire must fill its place – if not one’s pleasure in the eternal and spiritual things God has in store for us. Indeed, worry of such things gets us nowhere.

his eye is on the sparrow
Jesus reminds us that God the Father is our provider and always watching out for us and there is no need to worry, fear, or become anxious. The lyrics in the classic gospel song “His eye is on the sparrow” (listen) remind of the same. These emotions emerge from our lack of trust and faith in God and they are often accompanied with thoughts of our own capacity – too high and haughty or broken and fragile.  Jesus lesson for these apostles, disciples and us today is to keep our perspective and priorities in line. Forgetting such will undermine and derail our ministry and witness.

In the second half of this lesson Jesus also warns that we are not judge each other for this too will become a burden and cause anxiety in every relationship. Rather we ought to attend to our own sins and transgressions by setting them aside, abiding in Christ, and forgiving every transgression before it takes hold of our lives in the form of bitterness, fear, anger or timidity.