July 4

The cure for worldly anxiety

“To be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6).
“To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna” (Rev. 2:17).

Overcoming the world implies overcoming a state of worldly anxiety. You know there is a state of great carefulness and anxiety which is common and almost universal among worldly men. It is perfectly natural if the heart is set upon securing worldly good, and has not learned to receive all good from the hand of a great Father and trust Him to give or withhold with His own unerring wisdom. But he who loves the world is the enemy of God, and hence can never have this filial trust in a parental Benefactor, nor the peace of soul which it imparts.


Hence worldly men are almost incessantly in a fever of anxiety lest their worldly schemes should fail. They sometimes get a momentary relief when all things seem to go well, but some mishap is sure to befall them at some point soon, so that scarce a day passes that brings not with it some corroding anxiety. Their bosoms are like the troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
But the man who gets above the world gets above this state of ceaseless and corroding anxiety. There is a worldly spirit and there is also a heavenly spirit; and one or the other exists in the heart of every man and controls his whole being. Those who are under the control of the world, of course have not overcome the world. No man overcomes the world till his heart is imbued with the spirit of Heaven.
—Charles G. Finney.

There is a rest that God bestows,
Transcending pardon’s peace,
A lowly, sweet simplicity,
Where inward conflicts cease.

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