AS A RESULT of the fall and sin, there is always a problem in life, because when man fell, he was told that henceforward he was going to live, and “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread …”
(Gen. 9:19a) Man was no longer in paradise, he was no longer just to take the fruit and live a life of ease and enjoyment. As the result of sin, life in this world has become a task. Man must labour and meet trials and troubles. Every created human is subject to the same tribulations and trials.
It is very easy to deal with the matter of worry and anxiety by limiting onself to the daily problem. It is easy and solely on this level and tempting to do so. This is what you might call or term “psychology” Not the so-called new pschology, but the old pschology of life which has been practiced by mankind from the very beginning. And, it is very profound pschology; it is the essence of common-sense and wisdom, purely on the human level. If you want to go through life without crippling yourself and burdening yourself, and perhaps losing your health and the control of your nerves; do not carry yesterday to tomorrow with you; live for today and for the twenty four hours you are in. Most men who have been successful in life have been characterized by this wonderful capacity for forgetting the past. They have made mistakes, and on realising that they could do nothing about it, they let it go, refused and rejected the idea of dwelling and meditating on the mistakes and the imaginations of their consequences. They let the dead past bury its dead. The result is that when they make a decision, they do not spend the night worrying about it afterwards. On the other hand the man who cannot help referring back keeps himself awake when he should be sleeping, wondering why he made such a decision. And so he saps his nervous energy, and wakes up after poor and broken sleep, feeling tired and unfit. As a consequence, he makes more mistakes, completing the vicious circle of worry. He becomes frustrated and defeated therefore.
The absolute solution to anxiety and worry is not only in not being foolish by wasting our time and energy lamenting about the mistake of the past and its possible or probable consequence tomorrow, and not living to the maximum today, but most importantly, we must take the Lord’s statement here in the whole context of His teaching. And having considered it on a natural line and seen the essential wisdom in it, we must go further to learn not only to rely on God in the general, but also in the particular. We must realise that the God who helps us today will be the same God tomorrow, and will help us when tomorrow comes. We must therefore learn also to divide up our life in this world into these periods of twelve and twenty four hours. We must divide up our whole relationship to God in general, and for the whole of our life, and not believe in Him for the particular sections of our life. This is where many of us go wrong. We must learn to take things to God as they arise. Some fail very grievously in this matter because they always try to anticipate God. Never try to anticipate God. As you must not anticipate your own future, do not anticipate God’s future for you. Live day by day, live the life of obedience to God everyday. Do whatever God requires you to do everyday. Never indulge in thoughts of what God will want you to do tomorrow or at any other time. You must learn to trust God day by day for every particular situation or occasion, and never try to go ahead of Him.
There is a sense in which we commit ourselves to God once and forever; there is another sense in which we have to do it every day. There is a sense in which God has given us everything in grace once and for ever. Yes! But He gives grace to us also in parts and portions day by day. We must start the day by asking God for His grace to face and solve whatever problems and difficulties that may arise during the day. And with His abundant abounding grace He will be with us. We must learn to leave the future entirely in God’s hands. The essence of the declaration in Heb. 13:8: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today and for ever” is that the Christian need not worry for anything for what Christ was yesterday, He is today and He will be tomorrow. The Christian needs not anticipate life; the Christ who takes you through today will be the same tomorrow. He is changeless, everlasting, always the same; so the Christian must not think of tomorrow but instead about the changeless Christ. Apostle Paul put this notion in a different but-more apparently in 1 Cor. 10:13: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make away to escape, that ye may be able to bear it”
The foregoing passage (I Cor. 10:13) calls for some explanation in the context of this dissertation. The Apostle is here saying that there is no problem, difficult temptation or trial that is new under the sun, that is uncommon or not normal to human beings. The Greek word “anthropinos” translated common, connotes common to humans, that is, such as human beings can bear or endure. The Christian must not think that the conditions under which he is expected to live a faithful life of righteousness and holiness unto God is exceptional nor that the difficulties, that confront him are peculiar to Christianity. The believer’s trials and temptations, he must accept, are not different from those experienced all over the world by human beings. And because God is faithful especially to those who love, fear and obey His commandments, His promises are true to the call He has extended to men to serve Him. If He permitted temptations to come to His people that were beyond their strength to overcome, then His promises would appear to be wholly unreliable (see Ps. 34; 19; I Cor. 1:9; II Peter 2:9). The faithfulness of God is the Christian’s source of security against the enemy. There is no security in depending on self, but if the believer relies entirely on the promises of our covenant-keeping God, he will be safe. The fact that God to whom the Christian entrusts himself will not permit the enemy to tempt His children beyond their strength and ability to endure, should be a source of great encouragement to the believer. It is not God’s wish that men should suffer. God does not tempt man (see James 1:13). Man brought this condition of affairs upon himself by his disobedience (see Gen. 1:27,31; 3:15-19; Eccl. 7.29; Rom. 6:23). Since this is the case, God used these experiences to develop human character according to His will (see I Peter 4:12,13) When men are tempted therefore, they should remember that the temptation comes not, because God sends it; but because He permits it. Moreover, if rightly met in the strength God supplied, temptation may be the means of accelerating Christian growth in grace. Seeing that God has given assurance that temptations are never beyond the individual’s strength to endure, man himself is entirely responsible for falling into sin.
For every particular temptation, there is a particular provision made by God for escape or overcoming it. The expression “a way of escape” which literally means “a way out” is not a way to avoid the temptation, but a way out of the tragedy of falling into sin, of being overcome by the temptation. At the same time that God permits the trial or temptation to come, He will also have in readiness, the means whereby we may gain the victory and escape from committing sin. Jesus, the Christian’s example of right living, found that “way out’ in the written word of God (see Luke 4:4,8,12) so we, His followers may find the way out in Jesus – the living word (see John 1:1-3,14). He is ever ready and willing to deliver those who call upon Him and to keep them from falling into sin (Ps. 9:9; 27:5; 41:1; 91:15; II Peter 2:9; Rev. 3:10).
And to sum all this up, it is suggested that, as we learn in wisdom to take our days one by one as they come, forgetting yesterday and tomorrow, so we must learn the vital importance of walking with God day by day, of relying upon Him day by day, and applying to Him for the particular needs of each day. The fatal temptation to which we are all prone: is that of trying to store grace against the future. This means a lack of faith in God. Leave the problem with Him, leave it entirely with Him, confident and assured that He will always be going before you to meet the problems and difficulties. Turn to Him and you will find that He is there, that He knows all about it and knows all about you.
