Living Without Worry: Free From a Troubled Heart

By Jay Eberly

Worry-free living is part of the abundant life God provides for us as His children - one of the amazing benefits of our salvation! By worrying, the believer opens the door to many difficulties in life and shuts down the power of God that is to guard his life.

To experience the supply that God has made ready for him in this life, the believer must break the bad spiritual habit of taking the cares and trouble of life into the mind and heart; and, he must develop the Biblical habit of casting the care of the Lord and leaving it there.

In his new book, Living Without Worry, Jay Eberly delivers the message that worry is what keeps God's people from receiving what He has provided for them. Reverend Eberly walks believers through practical steps to experiencing the wonderful peace that God has provided in redemption. He teaches Christians how to use their faith to answer thoughts of worry so they won't become a part of their thought life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9780966903096

Book preview

faith!

Chapter One: Learning to Live Worry-Free

Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. - Philippians 4:6 (AMP)

Out of the Father’s great love and care for us, He has said not to worry. The Father doesn’t tell us to manage worry—He simply says not to do it! To disobey the Word is to sin. It may not necessarily be the easiest thing we have ever done, but God never asks us to do something we cannot do. He would be unjust to do so.

God knows that carrying cares opens the door to many difficulties in our lives. Because He has made known to us His abundant provision, He has instructed us to cast all our care on Him. It’s not right for children of the One "who giveth us all things richly to enjoy" to live anxiously (I Timothy 6:17). The Father has taken it upon Himself to see to everything that concerns us from now through eternity!

What if you were watching over your two-year-old child playing happily in the sandbox; then you noticed that he sat down, put his head in his hands, and was obviously troubled about something? You would go see what was wrong. Right?

You would be shocked if he looked up at you with those wide eyes and said, "I’ve been thinking. You know the economy has really been bad lately. Where am I going to get the money to go to college? I just don’t know what I’m going to do because college is getting so expensive these days!"

You would say to him, "Son, mommy and daddy will take care of that. You don’t have to think about anything. You just play with your trucks and leave all those things in mommy and daddy’s hands." Wouldn’t that be your response? Of course!

Well, that’s the way your heavenly Father wants you to respond to the cares of this life. He doesn’t want you to "fret or have any anxiety about anything" (Philippians 4:6 AMP). He wants you "casting all your care on Him," and then releasing your faith in prayer (I Peter 5:7-9). He wants you to enjoy your life without carrying the burden of care upon your mind.

WORRY DIMINISHES FAITH

The only way a believer is able to receive from the Lord is to release faith in the power of God through prayer or by speaking words of faith. Worrying, however, keeps faith from working. The Bible says, by faith one resists the devil (I Peter 5:9). If faith is not working, then a believer is not able to resist the devil, and, consequently, many difficulties run rampant in the believer’s life.

Yielding to fear, thinking doubtful thoughts, worrying or taking thoughts from the enemy diminish a believer’s faith down to "little" (Matthew 6:30). Worry never adds to a life (Matthew 6:27). Worry is a thief, and the enemy uses it to steal, kill and destroy. It also adds nothing to one’s faith—it only adds to their trouble. On the other hand, faith adds much to a believer’s life (Matthew 6:33), and faith thrives in a heart that has been liberated from worry!

LIVING THE ABUNDANT LIFE

Worry-free living is part of the abundant life God provides for us as His children—one of the amazing benefits of our salvation! Salvation comes as an all-inclusive package deal. Salvation does not just mean going to heaven, but includes many benefits that God provides for His children down here in this life. One of these benefits is the great privilege of casting our care on the Lord and living free from the burden that carrying those cares brings.

For example, when you travel, one of the benefits provided is that you are able to check-in your bags, rather than carry them the entire way. What if a man going to Chicago purchases a train ticket and then picks up his bags and starts walking down the train tracks toward Chicago? When he meets a crew working on the tracks, they may ask him, What are you doing? He says, I’m going to Chicago. I have a ticket, and you can’t stop me from being on these train tracks!

Can you see that he is missing out on the benefits of his ticket? That’s exactly the way a lot of Christians are living. They have a ticket to heaven, and they are going in the right direction, but they are missing out on one of the most wonderful benefits of that ticket. They continue to carry all the baggage of the cares of this life. They would be a lot better off if they would cast their care over on the Lord, and ride on into glory care-free, rather than trying to carry life’s baggage. If they would do what the Word says and cast their care over on the Lord, life wouldn’t seem so hard!

WORRY: ILLEGAL IN GOD’S KINGDOM

In MATTHEW 11:28–30, Jesus said:

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are HEAVY LADEN, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

You’re not the devil’s pack mule, assigned to carry anything he decides to load you down with in this life. Worry is one thing that Satan seeks to burden the Christian with; but, according to the Scriptures, you can cast anxious thoughts over on the Lord, and let Him carry the cares of life.

In fact, the Kingdom of Heaven makes cares illegal for you to carry! In any given nation of the world, there are certain things they have outlawed as contraband goods. Contraband is something prohibited from being imported or exported by the nation’s law. In other words, it’s something that is illegal to have in your possession or to carry with you into that country.

For example, when I travel into another country on a ministry trip and go through customs, there are some things that I am not permitted to carry into that country. So, when I prepare to enter, I must be sure not to have those things in my possession. Otherwise, my free movement within that country will be limited.

Worry is something that is illegal in the Kingdom of Heaven. You are not able to walk with God in the spirit if you carry worry with you! You are not able to get into faith carrying worry. All thought of cares has to be laid aside to do so. The first step in preparing to enter into faith is to cast the care of your situation over on the Lord.

If you fail to cast your care on the Lord, then unbelief limits free movement in the things of God, limits your ability to use your faith and hinders what He is able to do for you. Just as faith moves the hand of God, unbelief ties God’s hands and limits His movement in your life. In other words, you are operating outside the laws that govern the operation of His power and care for you!

A BELIEVER’S INHERITANCE: THE PEACE OF GOD

JOHN 14:7 (AMP) says:

Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. [Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.]

Jesus says that peace is bequeathed to you as part of your inheritance. He then says not to let trouble in through fear or worry.

Just because peace belongs to you as part of your inheritance, doesn’t mean you will automatically experience that peace. If you fail to keep yourself from worry and fear, you will not experience His peace, and the Father’s ability to move on your behalf will be limited. Psalm 78:41 says, "Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel."

You can choose to walk in the spirit, where the Holy Spirit teaches you how to walk in your inheritance of peace. The way to experience all the Father has provided for you is to allow the Holy Spirit to show you in the Word how to walk in His provision.

Philippians 4:11 (AMP) says, "I HAVE LEARNED how to be content (satisfied to the point where I am not disturbed or disquieted) in whatever state I am."

Walking in the experience of the peace that Jesus has provided for us, as part of our inheritance, is not something we understand how to do just because we are born again. We learn to walk in peace as we renew our minds with the Word and become a doer of what we have learned.

If the great apostle Paul, who wrote over half of the New Testament, had to LEARN how to stay in peace in the midst of trouble, then all believers will have to learn how to do so.

Thank God, Christians are not left as orphans to learn spiritual lessons on their own, through the school of hard knocks and getting bumps and bruises. Each believer has the Teacher, who lives right on the inside, teaching him how to walk in peace. As one listens to the Holy Spirit within, He will further school their heart and mind in the Word.

FIRST JOHN 2:27 says:

But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.

The anointing is the Holy Spirit who lives within your spirit. John 14:18 says, "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you," speaking of the Holy Spirit coming to assist you in walking into peace.

Those who respond to the Holy Spirit’s ministry of teaching will not look like they are "all orphaned." Neither their lives nor faces will look like they are all fatherless and comfortless. The Father, through the Holy Spirit, will lead them right into casting their cares on the Lord—right into a quiet and undisturbed mind. He will teach them to refuse the troubled thoughts of the enemy!

Chapter Two: Casting Your Care: Refusing Anxious Thoughts

First Peter 5:7 instructs you to cast all your care upon your heavenly Father because He cares for you. The Phillips translation says, "Throw the whole weight of your anxieties on him, for you are his personal concern."

To live a carefree life, you must understand how this way of living is accomplished. To do so, you must first understand which part of man Satan brings anxiety to, and then how to practice the Word pertaining to that area of your being.

In many cases, care or anxiety comes from evil spirits in the spirit realm in the form of thoughts against the mind. The goal of these evil spirits is to get one to allow the care that they propagate to enter into the spirit man. This happens by first