In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches very clearly about how wrong and stupid it is to worry.
He starts His message about worrying with these words: “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?” Matthew 6:25.
People worry, not only about material goods, but also about what others might think about them, and about what the future will hold. Research done on people’s tendency to worry shows that only 10 percent of the things that people worry about, ever happen. Just think what a waste of time!
Care for the inner life
Worry is a great trick of Satan to deceive us and to keep our thoughts occupied, and it often leads to doubt and unbelief. Thoughts of worry are like a python, a big snake that kills animals by wrapping itself around them and crushing them. Thoughts of worry crush our inner life with God. Jesus says, “Is not life more than food?” He is talking about our inner life with God. We must take great care of this life and feed it with words of faith, so that it does not die. But it’s easy to think, “I should have this, and I must have that too!” By thinking like this, we have a lot of care for our physical body, the outward things.
But what Jesus is really saying here is: “Take care of your relationship with God, and never let your care turn into worries about material things.” When we concentrate on the important things, on the life that the Father wants to give us, we will be freed from all worries because the Father watches over our inner lives. It is not possible to have an inner life with God when we are constantly worried about outward things.
Worry is unbelief
In the Sermon on the Mount, when teaching about worry, Jesus speaks about the lilies of the field, among other things. (Matthew 6:28-30.) If we think a bit more about this picture, we can’t think that the lily would ever say, “I don’t think I look good in this location. I don’t have the right background. I should have been placed somewhere else!” No, the lily isn’t worried about its location. But people can be worried about these things – for example, that they don’t have the place in life they think they deserve.
Jesus says to those who worry: “You of little faith!” And Jesus says unbelief is sin. (John 16:9.) We have to see worry in the same way. It is unbelief, and therefore sin.
The best medicine for worry is to fill ourselves with words of faith and simply believe in the many faith-strengthening words. Just think of Hebrews 13:5-6 or Romans 8:31-32, for example. God will never leave us, He will always be with us, because He is for us. These promises are for true disciples of Jesus, who have chosen not to waste time on worrying.