False teaching leads to false anxiety

Anxiety is a killer. One moment you feel like you’re on the top of the world with no stress at all. The next your wrapped with anxiety. It plagues your mind. Consumes all your thoughts, and you would do anything to get rid of it. Anxiety leaves knots in your stomach and makes you feel like their is something in your throat. It becomes hard to breath and difficult to control your thoughts.

Where does anxiety come from? I’m not 100% sure. I know for a fact that it doesn’t come from God. I believe anxiety comes from the world and a lot of the things that we are thought to believe that we necessarily shouldn’t.

There is an unfair pressure that the world puts on us. It becomes easy to believe that we should live according to the world’s standards vs. God’s. There is a pressure and a certain way that seems like the way you’re supposed to live. We look at other people and think that is how our lives should look.

We are all blessed with the opportunity to learn new things everyday. We spend the first quarter of our lives in school learning and when school is over and you begin to work, the learning starts all over again. It’s not a bad thing, it’s actually really good. We need to learn in order to be successful with what we do in life.

What does this success look like? In the book of Ecclesisates, Solomon writes over and over again how it’s our responsibility to enjoy what we do. No matter what we do in life, as long as we are happy with it, that is pleasing to God. Usually, when we are doing something that is pleasing to God, we are pleased ourselves. In my life right now, as I’m trying to get my license, I could look at other people in the office or my friends who are working and I could think, that should be me. But going through Ecclesisates again really reminded me that as long as I am happy with where I am at right now, God is pleased.

That’s something I want everyone to know. We spend way to much time comparing ourselves to others and trying to live a life that looks good to everyone else in the world. The world is the false teacher. We learn valuable things, but not the truth that you find in the word of God.

In Matthew chapter 28 Jesus is warning against the religious leaders.

He says this: So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie of heavy cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to life a finger to move them. (Matthew 23:3-4)

Jesus is instructing us to not do everything they tell you. They don’t practice what they preach. They tie up a cumbersome load and put it on peoples shoulders but don’t do anything themselves. 

When I was reading this scripture this morning, all I could think about was anxiety and where it comes from. Rachel and I talk all the time about anxiety and how we can better get rid of it. Like I mentioned before, I talked about where I believe anxiety comes from. The false teaching of this world. The false expectations. The false reality of how we should live. Like I mentioned before, all of those teachings we learn are beneficial but we will never be fulfilled when that is the only teaching we abide by. 

False teaching leads to false anxiety. I encourage each one of you to remember where the truth comes from. The truth comes from the Word of God. When you are feeling anxious remember where the cure from anxiety is found. It’s found in Jesus Christ and fulfillment through him. It’s remembering that only God can fill all of our desires to the fullest. All of the feelings you get where you’re feeling anxious, God can cure those. It’s hard though. Even with knowing where fulfillment comes from, it’s tough to remember that when anxiety hits you hard. 

My prayer is that you don’t listen to only the false teachers...the teachers of this world...the trust comes from the Word of God. Embrace yourself into the Word. Remember that you are not alone. Everyone experiences anxiety. Let’s conquer it together.