Day 8 | 40-Day Lenten Fast & Devotional

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

Good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning, family. God bless you. It's day eight of our 40-day Lenten devotional. We have been focused this week on faith and trust in God. I don't know about you, but it seems like God has been stretching me daily with new areas and new spaces to not only trust him, but also to see areas where I can extend or stretch my level of confidence in knowing not only who he is, but who he is to me. So today's no different.

I want us to take a look at the book of Philippians, the fourth chapter starting at the sixth verse. I'm only gonna read the sixth and seventh verse, for many of us, this should echo a familiar. Philippians chapter four, starting at verse number six. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, my prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request before God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

Boy, if this is not good news to us on today, have you ever been in a situation where you were either watching the news or someone had explained to you what was taking place and you found yourself literally anxious? Anxiety is literally an evidence of a lack of trust and or faith in God himself. Because what it says is that the situations that I'm dealing with are either so impendingly doomed that I don't see my way out of it, or I don't see God moving through it, or I don't see how I can survive it. And that's been the sentiment I've been hearing. I have people who have called me repeatedly, even over the last week to two weeks to two months to even this over this past little season and said, listen, "what are we gonna do? What about this? And how do we deal with that? And how this is gonna affect me? And what can we do?"

And it's this simple feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that I wanna rebuke that in the name of Jesus. Because the scripture says, listen, don't be anxious about anything that there's not anything, not some things we'll be anxious about. No, no, no, God said don't be anxious about anything. Let nothing find itself to the place to shake the core foundation of what it means to trust in God. That regardless of what happens, regardless of what's rolled out, regardless of how you feel it may affect your bottom line or it affect your, God says don't be anxious about anything because we as Christian believers have something different. We have something embedded in us that gives us some hope in this season and that is God says, I'm gonna give you peace. The word says he's not only just gonna give you peace though, he's gonna give you peace that transcends understanding. You know why? Because peace doesn't mean that everything around you is going right or that everything around you is gonna be okay.

What it's saying is that in the midst of everything around you going on and seemingly being not okay, you're okay. That's the power of God. This is amazing. And it's amazing news for us that we can maneuver through this plane called life and honestly be at peace because us being affected by the factors which only God controls is not in our vocabulary because we've already casted our cares upon him. When it is we find ourselves anxious is because we've decided to adopt the responsibility of circumstances beyond our control. When God says, that to me, he's given us the balance, the out, he's given us everything we need. He says, listen, that's not even yours. And when we begin to lean into distrusting God peace, God will fix the rest. Sometimes our lives are filled with more chaos because God is waiting for you to release some of that. And the longer that you try to shoulder it on your own, the more anxious you'll be. It's amazing that even our youth, one of the plagues facing our youth and society today is that of anxiety and depression. The feeling of death, and destruction or impending failure or two, feeling of hurt, harm or danger showing up. Anxiety. And God says, that's not me.

At any rate, have an incredible day. I want to encourage and empower you today to seek out God's peace by way of your prayer and thanksgiving. I can't wait to see you tonight for Bible study at six o'clock and we're gonna debut our very first Lenten meal by our very own sister, Christina Dickerson, who's gonna bless us with something that's tasty and falls within our fast guidelines. I'm looking forward to, can't wait to see you tonight. God bless you and good morning. Have an incredible Thursday.