Health & Freedom Abundant Life Newsletter
Abundant Life Newsletter - Vol 1.1.3
Make It Your Own
Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! For most people, this is the season of stress; late nights, deadlines, appointments, expectations, bad weather and too many friends or relatives in one room. It will help us enjoy our holidays much more to know what God’s Word says about stress.
The first thing I did, in this study on stress, was to list some words that mean stress to me. Words like – pressure, strive, contend, agony. Next I used a thesaurus to find more words that mean about the same thing, like – strain, contest, struggle, battle, affliction, trouble, distress, heaviness, fight, wrestle, and anguish.
I searched for these words in Young’s or the Strong’s concordance. Some of these words are not found in the concordance. But the ones that are found lead to God’s wisdom regarding stress. If you have a few verses in mind write them down, so you remember what came to you first.
These are some of the words I found in the Young’s:
Affliction – thlipsis in the Greek means mental pressure and is translated affliction 17 times. It is also translated anguish-1; persecution-1; tribulation-21; trouble-3; burden-1. Look up each of these English words to find the verses and also other Greek words. Please continue searching on your own.
Trouble – thlipsis, I Cor 7:28, II Cor 1:4,8
tarasso, agitate; I Pet 3:14 and others.
Affliction – kakosis evil treatment; Acts 7:34.
kakopatheia suffer evil; Jas 5:10.
pathema suffering, feeling, II Tim 3:11, Heb 10:32.
sugkakopatheo suffer evil together; II Tim 1:8, Heb 11:25.
Burden – baros means weight (see Matt 20:12; Acts 15:28; Gal 6:2; Rev 2:24; a variation II Cor 5:4)
phortion means load to be born (see Matt 11:30, 23:4; Luke 11:46 both, Gal 6:5).
thlipsis- II Cor 8:13. Conflict – agon in the Greek is a noun and means struggle. It is also translated fight and race. See Phil. 1:30; Col. 2:1; John 18:36, I Tim 6:12; II Tim 4:7; Heb 12:1.
athlesis a contest; Heb 10:32.
polemos war; Heb 11:34.
Take the time to note all these Greek words in your bible and the meaning of the passages will become alive as you read. Notice how many of these words occur in Hebrews. The book of Hebrews explains to Israel why they need Jesus Christ, lots of STRESS.
Believers have always been under “stress.” It is merely a symptom of our fallen state. But we have a source for renewed strength and peace: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.” Is 26:3. Make it your own!
~Chris
The purpose of Make It Your Own is to get you into the Bible. Once you begin studying on a regular basis the spirit of God “will guide you into all truth”; John 16:13. Ask Him to teach you.
Ponder & Pray
Q. How can I grow in faith and avoid the consequences of unbelief? J.A.
A. Spiritual growth requires spiritual food and unbelief is the result of spiritual malnutrition. For example, in order to grow physically you need nourishment. Whether the items on most grocery shelves qualify as nourishment is doubtful. But most people haphazardly consume these “foods” expecting to grow and prosper physically. But later in life they manifest disease states caused, not by starvation, but rather malnutrition. Jesus said “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proeceedeth out of the mouth of God.” If you feast upon the Word of God and meditate on it, every day and night, you will be digesting and assimilating, putting on the mind of Christ. And as situations arise you will have ample opportunity to test your faith. The more you talk to the Lord and listen for Him to answer and choose to obey Him in these daily situations, the more you mature in faith. C.D.
Q. How can I pursue health and not be fanatical about it? A.M.
A. This is what I finally learned. III John 2 says, “Beloved I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospers. In order to prosper and be in health our soul must prosper. All we can do with our soul is feed it the bread of life, the word of God. Exercise, healthy foods and herbs are important for our self discipline and quality of life, but none of these can take the place of knowing God and His Son, Jesus Christ, as revealed in the Bible. If you live only into your thirties, but do everything your Heavenly Father asks, He will accept you. Make sure you are a witness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, not health foods or herbal remedies. “For of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.” Luke 6:45. C.D.
