For

“For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life”  Matthew 6:25

For – We’ve all considered the thought of Jesus about anxiety.  We’ve all pondered the depth of his command.  And we’ve all come up short on the application.  In spite of every good intention, we find ourselves anxious about life.  Maybe what we have been missing in this self-analysis is the opening word – dia.  Maybe we didn’t see how Jesus wanted us to leave anxiety behind.

It’s so easy to skip over the “unimportant” words.  We have a tendency to concentrate on the “big thoughts”, in this case anxiety.  But every word is God’s word and often the best words are the inconspicuous ones.  Here the word dia tells us something very important.  Anxiety is directly connected to Matthew 6:24 and Matthew 6:24 is all about whom we serve.  Anxiety, says Jesus, is the result of being a slave to possessions. 

There is a Greek saying (called a “macarism” after the word for “happy”) that goes like this:  He who has no possessions is free of many worries.  Jesus used this style of speaking in the delivery of the Beatitudes (by the way, they are not at all what you think they are as my book demonstrates).  Here he says that the more we have, the more we have to worry about.  Anxiety is part of trying to hold on to the life you’ve constructed.  The looser the grip, the greater the freedom.  And if you really want to be free, sell all you have and follow Him.  What did you think Jesus meant when he said, “I will make you really free?” 

Anxiety is a killer.  It is the name of the disease called, “having”.  No matter how much or how little you have, anxiety is always present when you choose to grasp it.  God’s way is just the opposite.  God gives.  God gives it away.  Liberally.  Constantly.  God isn’t anxious at all because he doesn’t try to hold on to what he has.  That’s the message behind Philippians 2:5-9.  Jesus didn’t grip tightly to what was his.  He readily gave it up for us. 

Want to live a stress-free, anxiety-free life?  Let it all go (and if that doesn’t jar your human nature commonsense, then you haven’t hear Jesus).