Adversity is inevitable but stress is optional. Because adversity is what those circumstances actually do to you but stress, well, that is something you do to yourself. 

If you find yourself worrying you are involved in stress. You are told in the Bible not to worry. As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ you need to understand that worry is a mental attitude sin and it's a self-torment—the self-torment of anxiety regarding anything in this life. 

Worrying is a disquieting and painful state of mind that involves much concern over something in your life. This painful uneasiness of your mind always anticipates the worst and so if you are worrying and you have this anticipation and apprehension of danger, misfortune, trouble, disaster coming—uncertainty in your life—what a horrible way to live. You have a state of restlessness. You are always agitated and it produces some mental disturbances, some sort of foreboding anxiety, and painful uncertainty. Worrying is a horrible sin. It destroys your ability to think and to use the faith-rest drill; and if you don't check it, it can actually lead you to be mentally ill.

You can't fulfill the life of God if you worry. 

Psalm 100:5, “For the Lord is absolutely good; and His unfailing love is everlasting, and His faithfulness is to every generation.”

We’ll never know the greatest happiness in this world if we lose the battle of worry in our soul. So if you are worrying, if you naturally like to worry, that’s a major source of sin in your life. Listen to Deuteronomy 31:6-8, “Be strong and courageous, don’t be afraid nor tremble.” Isaiah 41:10, “Do not fear, for I'm with you; do not anxiously look around, for I am your God. I will help you.”

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication along with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. [that’s through the filling of the Holy Spirit and through the faith-rest drill] And then the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).

Worrying is your sin nature getting proactive in your life, but we want the Word of God to be proactive in your life.

Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than those little birds? And which one of you by being anxious [that’s worrying] can add a single hour to your lifespan? And why are you worrying about your clothes? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” (Matthew 6:25-29)

God has a perfect plan for you and if you will learn the plan and use the plan, you never have to worry, you never have to be afraid, you can have complete self-confidence and complete happiness in the plan of God.

The Christian life is about shaping the way you think, changing the way you think so that your heart lines up with the will of God for your life.

Full Transcript: https://rhem.pub/749-transcript