Life is certainly not easy, it can be like mountain climbing. Just when you thought things were going to get easier, another mountain looms in front of you. Those mountains are the difficulties that God allows into our lives. Everyone one of us has at least one difficult mountain that we’ve got to climb over to move on in our lives.
This morning we start a new message series which I’ve entitled “Dealing With Difficulties.” If God allows those difficult mountains to come into our lives, doesn’t it make sense that He would help us deal with them? NLT 2 Peter 1:3 His divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. This promise from God promises us that God will give us everything we need for living a godly life. Notice that God doesn’t promise to answer every question you may have about life. He doesn’t promise to give you everything you may want in life or everything you may need to live life the way you want to. What He does promise is to give you everything you need to live the life He created you to life. That includes scaling the mountains that block our path.
Today my message is entitled “Coping With Stress.” The mountain that I’m going to be looking at is the mountain of stress. Stress is “a mentally or emotionally disruptive or upsetting condition occurring in response to adverse external influences.” Notice that stress is not the adverse circumstances, but our response to them. Stress affects our physical health. Stress can increase your heart rate, raise your blood pressure, give you headaches and make you irritable and depressed. A high percentage of illnesses are ultimately due to the effects of stress in our lives.
NIV Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God; God tells us to just get quiet before Him and realize that He is God, He is in charge, God is in control, not you. So that’s what we’re going to do this morning. We’re going to take some time and listen to what God’s Word has to say about how you can cope with stressful situations in your life. To do that we’re going to look at the life of Jesus.
Jesus was constantly under pressure He began his public ministry at the age of 30 knowing that he had only three years to live and change the world. Huge crowds clamored for his attention he rarely had personal privacy. He had to train twelve bumbling disciples to carry on after him. He was constantly interrupted, questioned, criticized and ridiculed. He dealt with enormous stress in His life, yet Jesus was never stressed-out, He remained at peace under pressure. Today, we’re going to discover what Jesus’ secrets were to coping with stress so we can apply to them to our own lives and follow Him.
To hear more about this topic, listen to my September 30, 2007 message entitled Coping With Stress