Stress

There are so many things to stress about in this world. People live under so much stress. Modern people absorb stress from the environment around them; it weighs on our lives continuously.

 

A lot of stress is the result of idolatry. The idols of comfort, status, approval and popular acceptance are false idols. However, false idols promise much; yet deliver little. Because they are false. And not God.

 

False idols hold you to ransom. They promise to satisfy the depths of your soul, but their best promise is an empty promise.

 

Flase idols blackmail you with empty promises; they threaten not to fulfil their promises if you stop worshiping them. But their promises are empty any way. It is like a pauper threatening not to deliver on his promise to pay you $1 million. It is really no threat at all.

 

The false idol cannot provide you what you need. But it can threaten to withdraw what it is not providing. And if you are trusting in the false idol this will produce a trauma.

 

This is what stress is: The real threat of a false idol to withdraw an empty promise.

 

Idols have no power, yet we concede to them all power; and then get stressed when the idol bluffs that it will withhold its power that it never had in the first place.

 

The antidote to stress is the gospel.

 

The gospel says false gods are false. The gospel says empty promises are empty promises. The gospel says God is Truth. The gospel says God will honour His every promise of life, acceptance and approval of our souls. The gospel says that everything we are asking false idols to produce God wants to give us. The gospel says we should not place our reliance on the false idols, but place our full reliance on the love of God that is found in Jesus.

 

The gospel replaces the empty promises and empty threats of false idols with real promises and real affirmations. The gospel replaces stress with confidence.