Addressing Anxiety with a Clear View of God – Purity 1836
Purity 1836 12/10/2025 Purity 1836 Audio Podcast
Purity 1836 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of a distant yet nearly unobstructed panoramic view of the Catskill mountain range and a snowy landscape in the foreground comes to us from yours truly as I captured this breathtaking mountain scene while working Monday afternoon.
Well, it’s Wednesday and I share today’s mountain view as a visual representation of our arrival to another midweek summit, so Happy Hump day, and to encourage us all to keep our heads up during this chilly time of the year and to keep your eyes open to the beauty that is there to be seen in our everyday lives.
Last night, I hosted another session of the Grace Course to a small group of clients and the lesson of the evening, Calm!, addressed how to best deal with anxiety from a Christian world view. The lesson stressed the importance of knowing who we are in Christ, having a healthy relationship with God that is based on biblical truth, and to have a accurate perception of the situations we face, knowing what the facts are (not the assumptions), and to recognize what our responsibilities are. The key principle regarding knowing our responsibilities is to understand that we can only be responsible for the things we have the right and ability to control.
After my recent firing, I have come to understand that getting my job back or even getting a new job was NOT something I had the right or the ability to control. Sure, I have appealed to my former employer through my union representation to work out an agreement where I can return to work, and yes, in the meantime, I have applied for a number of other jobs to meet my financial needs . My efforts to find new employment was rewarded ( THANK YOU GOD) and I am currently working but even though I put forth the effort, I was never guaranteed success. Getting my job back or getting a new job was completely beyond my control and while I was understandably anxious about being suddenly out of work, my worrying about it didn’t resolve my problems.
I had to do what I could do and then leave the rest up to God. God provided for me pretty quickly – almost immediately to tell the truth – and while it appears that for the moment my needs will be met, there is still a great deal of uncertainty about my future that could be cause for anxiety. The job I have is a temp job. My union indicates that reaching an agreement with my currently “former employer” looks hopeful but isn’t going to happen immediately. Although I was interviewed for a couple of positions, most of other job applications haven’t been successful, and with the possibility of returning to my company out there, I have to wait and see what will happen before I can I fully commit myself to a full time job with another company.
In seeking the Lord’s guidance of how to move forward in this uncertain situation, I got the indication that I am to just wait on Him and trust that Him to move things on my behalf. This really brings out the importance of having a truth based relationship with God – to know who Our Heavenly Father really is.
If I think that God arranged all of this to make me suffer needlessly, I don’t know who God is because I am negating His goodness, grace, and mercy. If I think that God doesn’t play a part in the things that will ultimately be decided or take place, I deny His sovereignty. If I think that God has left me and isn’t concerned with my life, I refute the word of God that tells me that God will never leave me or forsake me and that God cares for me. The truth is that God loves me and He demonstrated that love for us by becoming one of us in the person of Jesus Christ.
Speaking of God becoming one of us, the Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah devotional for today talks about that topic and I am sharing it on the blog today to help us to have a better understanding of how that actually happened and what it looked like. David Jeremiah writes:
“ONE OF US
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9
What did Jesus Christ look like? Did He have the appearance of royalty like Israel’s first (Saul) and second (David) kings did (1 Samuel 9:2; 16:12)? The Bible doesn’t describe Jesus’ appearance, but when the prophet Isaiah described the coming Messiah, the description was less royal and more common.
Using the descriptive words of The Message paraphrase, Jesus entered the world as “a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field.” He was not “attractive,” a person to whom we wouldn’t give “a second look.” He was “looked down on and passed over”; indeed, people “turned away” from Him (Isaiah 53:2-3). In other words, if you had passed Jesus on a crowded first-century street, you likely would have walked right by.
Paul makes it clear that Jesus left royalty behind and embraced poverty when He entered our world (Philippians 2:5-8). He became poor that we might become rich. Jesus welcomes us, the common man and woman, because He became one of us.
Thank God today that Jesus gave up royalty so that you might become spiritually rich in Him.” – David Jeremiah
A Christian’s life is full of mysteries; poor, and yet rich. – Thomas Manton
Amen. Ironically, the Creator of all beauty decided not to use those talents to woo us into His kingdom. God could have cause Jesus to be incarnated as the most beautiful person ever seen but He didn’t.
Instead, Jesus was not physically attractive. He wasn’t someone who was going to be treated well just by showing up. His looks weren’t anything special.
This is a struggle for us to understand because most of the depictions of Jesus that we see make Jesus handsome. Jonathan Roumie from The Chosen and other actors who have played Jesus were traditionally handsome men (maybe not Max Von Sydow or Willem Defoe so much). How Jesus has been portrayed makes it hard to imagine Him as unattractive and thus it makes it hard to understand why He was rejected by so many.
If we think about Jesus as unattractive though, it makes sense. Not only was Jesus saying unpopular things, but He also didn’t look popular.
What’s your reaction to hearing someone who isn’t attractive saying things that are critical about the way most of us live? Don’t we sort of hate those people or easily dismiss what they say?
Maybe Jesus being rejected is not such a mystery after all.
But as we know, it wasn’t Jesus’ looks that mattered. It was the things He said and the things He did that revealed the fact that He is God. The truth of His deity came shining through to His disciples in spite of His looks. Their spiritual eyes were opened to realize that Jesus was Messiah.
And likewise, we see Jesus and His work on the cross as beautiful, in a sense, – not because of what it looks like but because of what it did. Jesus and His work on the cross gave us forgiveness and peace with God. It gives us a new life and hope for eternity. And that my friends is beautiful!
Jesus came to be like us, and took on the form of one of the “least of us”, to show us that He understands rejection and to cause us to look twice to see the truth.
So rejoice, for God has opened our eyes to see His beauty and to know His truth – the truth that sets us free and that makes our lives beautiful.
——————————————————————
For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/.
——————————————————————
Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By John G. Kruis.
(While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s work. (The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling By John G. Kruis on Amazon )
This morning’s meditation verse comes from the section on Prayer – Waiting On the Lord.
Matthew 6:12 (ESV) “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
Today’s verse falls under the fourth point of our counseling reference guide resource section on Prayer.
4. Pray daily for the forgiveness of sins.
Today’s Bible verse teaches us to pray for our forgiveness and to forgive those who sin against us.
If we ever wonder what we are to do as Christians, the Lord’s prayer certainly directs us in the way to go and this portion of Jesus’s teaching tells us something very important about our new found faith.
The fact that we are told that we should pray for forgiveness, tells us that God accepts us as His children even though we won’t be perfectly sinless. Should God just chastise us and tell us to get our acts together? He does as scripture teaches us how to live but He understand that we won’t always get it right and even if we mess up, God is still “Our Father”.
So prayer for forgiveness and while your at it forgive those who sin against you. God through Jesus Christ, forgave us so it is only right that we forgive those who offend us.
———————————————————–
As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.com where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from “Day by Day Along the Way” By Jay E. Adams.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Adams’ books for your own private study and to support the late author’s work. This resource is available online for less than $20 at many sites.
Day 335
They took him aside and explained God’s Way to him more accurately. – Acts 18:26
What a blessing it is when laymen can help a minister become more effective! Aquila and Priscilla did just that for Apollos, who was doing well with the limited knowledge that he had. But there was more to the faith than he had been taught. It seems that he had been a disciple of John the Baptist, who pointed to Christ but didn’t preach the whole story. So, with their help, he was able to become even more powerful in preaching the Word (v. 28). Today, there are many pastors who could be better preachers if they were given the right resources to learn more: books, distant learning courses, dvds, computer programs, and so on. Laymen who can afford to do so may have a significant ministry by providing such help if an earnest minister cannot afford to purchase such programs. Ministers, on the other hand, must be willing to accept all the help they can—from whatever source.[1]
The MT4Christ247 audio podcast is available on YouTube, Apple, Amazon, Spotify, iHeartradio, Podbean, Audible, and many more podcast platforms!
Subscribe to The MT4Christ247 Channel on YouTube!
Email me at m.t.clark@mt4christ.com with any questions, or comments, or to inquire about our Christian Life Coaching or Prayer Ministry Services.
“The views, opinions, and commentary of this publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries, or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the author may represent.”
Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
Support MT 4 Christ Community Freedom Ministry!
To Give via Pay Pal Go to the MT4Christ Donations Page
Or Give Via Venmo or the Cash App by scanning the QR Code below:
[1] Jay E. Adams, Day by Day along the Way (Cordova, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 343.
Leave a Reply