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Commentary on "Divine Provision for Anxiety""

PHIL HARRIS

 

Day 4: Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - Trust Against Anxiety

 

Overview

The key text that sets the theme for today comes from the very words of Jesus:

“LET NOT your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places. If this were not so, I would have told you. For I am going away to prepare a place for you. (John 14:1-2 MLB)

These comforting words were spoken by Jesus right after Peter asserted that he would never deny Jesus and Jesus said that before the rooster crowed, he would deny Jesus three times.

 

Observations

In the quarterly lesson it mentions how secular counseling stresses “increased self-confidence and enhanced self-esteem” then states that “this is acceptable but incomplete”. What? How can this be acceptable and incomplete at the same time? Either it works or it doesn’t. You cannot have it both ways. The world attempts to take God out of our lives and replace it with self-help programs where we work towards our own self-improvement. You should notice in our key passage for today that Jesus ask each of us to not be troubled for one and only reason; believe in God.

Jesus’ teaching on ‘self-help’ is that we must deny self:

He told them all, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross day by day and follow Me; for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life on My account will save it. For what will it benefit a person to gain the whole world and lose or forfeit himself? (Luke 9:23-25 MLB)

Paul declares that in our flesh nothing good dwells. Keep in mind he was speaking to Christians, fellow brothers in Christ, Rom. 7:1, 4:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. (Romans 7:18-19 ESV)

Instead, our ‘self-worth’ must be undergirded by how God views us:

In the very words of our Savior, we are so priceless in God’s sight he gave us his own Son to die for our sins:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 ESV)

The most depraved person, when they accept the meaning of this one verse and receive the atoning blood of Jesus death on the cross for the remission of their sins has infinitely more so called self-worth than any worldly-base counseling could ever offer.

 

Summary

  1. We must understand that in our fleshly self there is nothing of value or good. No worldly conceived self-help program can change our unregenerate lives. Either the indwelling of the Holy Spirit has brought life to our dead spirit or we are still dead in our sins.
  2. Our understanding of self-worth and all that goes with it must be centered on how God sees and values us when he provided his own Son for the remission of our sins. It does not include any work or action of our own because God loved each of us while we were still depraved and dead in our sins.
  3. In the case of Peter notice how Jesus lovingly assured him there was a home prepared for him in heaven just hours before his utter failure as one of his disciples.

 

GO TO DAY 5

 

Copyright 2010 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised December 28, 2010. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.

The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.

 

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