Philippians 4:6-7 “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” This episode talks about how God wants us to not worry. He gives us an alternative to worry. It also talks about the promise God makes to us if we do as he tells us to. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
By Prayer and Supplication with Thanksgiving
Philippians 4:6-7 “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Don’t worry about anything, seriously, does God know us at all? Yes, God does know us, and this is why he says over and over again in the bible for us not to worry. He knows that we worry all the time. We worry about everything from small things to big things. It doesn’t make a difference, how many times He tells us not to worry, we seem to do it anyway. The thing is, He doesn’t just tell us not to worry and then move on with the next thing. Often times He tells us not to worry and then in the next breath tells us what to do instead.
In this verse it says, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” After God tells us not to worry he tells us what to do instead. Instead of worrying, with prayer, supplication and thanksgiving we should let our requests known to God. Which do you think will help you the most, worrying about the thing, or praying about it and letting God know what you need? I’m going to bet praying about it. Actually, I don’t have to bet because God is telling us this right here in this verse. God is giving us the instructions of what to do, why don’t we listen? Why do we insist on worrying when He is giving us an alternative?
Do you know what supplication is? If you don’t understand what God is asking of us in this verse then how can you do it? I had to look it up as I have heard this verse before, but I wanted to really understand it especially if it can help me, and others to worry less. Supplication means asking or begging for something earnestly or humbly. It may seem redundant to say prayer and supplication. However, not all prayer is supplication. When you are praying sometimes you are thanking God, or praising God and other times you may be requesting something. Every time you pray you don’t necessarily make a request. However, in supplication, there is always a request.
In this verse God is telling us to make a request. What is bothering you, what are you worried about, what do you need to happen? God is telling us to pray to Him and to ask humbly ask Him for what we need. He is asking us to place our worries in His hands instead of keeping them to ourselves. After we pray for them and ask God for our help He is asking us for thanksgiving. God is commanding us to do three things in place of worrying. First, we are to pray to the Lord when we find ourselves worrying. Second, we are to ask God for His help and plead with Him to answer our prayers. Third, we are supposed to let go of it, and thank Him for answering our prayers.
This third step is probably the hardest for most of us. Some of us may struggle with asking God for help, but eventually there comes a point when we all do it anyway, even if its hard. However, the letting go and the trusting part, that is where many of us get tripped up. When we notice that we are worrying about something we usually run through all the scenarios in our head and we see what we need to do to fix the situation. Then we try to fix the situation by ourselves as we continue to worry about it. Finally, when we feel as though we have no other choice, we turn the situation over to the Lord. However, we don’t turn it over completely. We turn it over, and we ask for His help and yet we still hold on to the idea that we may need to fix it or we worry that He won’t fix it. Why do we do this? I think we do it because it is hard to rely on others. It is hard to believe that someone else besides us can fix our problems. The thing is, if God were just another human, I get it. People have let us down before, and we struggle to trust them. However, God isn’t just another human. He isn’t human at all and He has never let us down.
If we are going to follow God’s instructions in this verse then we are not only going to have to ask God to help us, we are going to need to release it to Him completely and then thank Him for fixing it for us. If we ask God for help he will give it to us. The second half of this verse is just as important as the fist half. The first sentence tells us what He wants us to do and then the second half tells us what He promises us if we do it. God tells us that if we can do these 3 simple steps, they are simple but they are not easy, then “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Did you catch that? “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” If we are able to ask God for His help and then hand it over to Him then the peace of God will guard our hearts and our minds.
God is not telling us we need to just forget about it on our own. He is saying that we don’t have to worry because the peace of God will guard our hearts and our minds. God will not only take care of our problem that we are worrying about but He will also put our minds at peace. I think this is something I am constantly struggling with and I am sure I am not the only one. I think I need to do these things on my own. For instance, the other day I was thinking about how maybe I don’t have enough faith. Then I felt as though the Holy Spirit reminded me that faith is a gift. If God wants me to have more faith he can give me more faith. One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is increased faith. I don’t have to do it all on my own. I am responsible for seeking God and for asking Him for the things that I need and want, however, I am not responsible for the fruit of those prayers. Only God can make our prayers fruitful. This is going to be something I keep reminding myself of over this upcoming year. Only God can make our prayers fruitful.
We don’t have to worry if we are doing enough for the Lord, or if we are praying the right way, or if we are asking Him the right way. We just have to by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make our requests known to the Lord and He will take care of the rest. If we can just remember to pray to the Lord, to beg him humbly for what it is we need, and then to Thank Him, even before we see the results, God will make our prayers fruitful, that is not our job. No matter how much we want to fix things, that is not our job. We get to turn it over to God and He will take care of it for us. I know this is easier said than done. It may sound simple, but I know it is not easy to actually do it. However, it’s not easy to spend so much time worrying either. Would it be worth the effort if it meant you could have the peace of God, which surpassing all understanding, guarding your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we ask that you help us to release our worries to you. We ask that you increase our faith in you and you help us to realize we don’t have to do it on our own. Lord, you want to help us and you are waiting for us to ask, give us the strength and wisdom to ask. Help us to turn to you sooner when we’re struggling. Help us to not only turn to you with prayer, which we are hopefully doing often but also with supplication and thanksgiving which are two things we may forget to do. We love you Lord you are so amazing and we definitely want your peace to guard our hearts and minds in Jesus Christ. Lord, we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. The character trait we are working on this week is how can we serve other more. Matthew 20:25-28 says, “Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” We are here to serve others and sometimes we can be really good about reminding others of this, but not great at remembering to do it ourselves. The article I sent out last night was titled 95 Easy Ways To Serve Others. Especially in this holiday season, it might be nice to look through this list and pick a few ways we can serve others. Holidays can be a time of great joy, and they can also be a time of great suffering for anyone who has lost someone. Try to remember others in this time of celebration. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day.