Don't Panic, Part 2

I hope you enjoyed part 1 and found it interesting and useful. Part 2 is what I believe God spoke to me when I began to seek Him, I believe the Lord showed me that it starts with me, or us as individuals. I (we) must seek Him before I (we) ask others to do so. God directed me to Matthew 6:25-34. Folks, I have really applied this to my life and the blessings have been awesome. There has also been a sense of peace and joy I have never experienced before. I know this seems like a lot of effort, but I am talking about a relationship with God. Can we put this much effort into our relationship with our Heavenly Father? I have also learned that the benefits are enormous in all areas of my life.

God has been speaking to me for months about this message from Him. In this message, God is speaking to us as a Loving Father. He is telling us what we need to do about real issues in our lives – as individuals and as a nation. We need to hear from God and when we do and are obedient He will address these issues and more.

Beloved, only God knows how to have revival and He is the only one that can produce revival. So you see what is going wrong in the natural may well be spiritual. For example, someone may be praying to be healed and God answers that prayer and releases healing. It is received in the spiritual and it is then manifested in a natural body. It may be experienced immediately, in days, or in weeks but we know that God healed when His touch was felt. However, it also works in the opposite manner. If there is a nation or person in disobedience, God removes His blessing. It also make take time for the results of that to manifest – like the economy. Now, we know God did not do this, we do it to ourselves. However, for example we know that God does not bless abortion and we are fools to think so. How does this cause us to lose economic blessings? In a lot of different ways and you make no mistake about it the abortion business is a big business and millions upon millions of dollars have been made performing abortions. I will cover this more, or God’s Word will, as we study it together. Now let us get on to the message from God.

“Don’t Panic” Part 2

Bishop John D. Ritcheson

Every where I go the main question I am being asked by people of all ages, different backgrounds and economic levels is what are we going to do as a nation about gas prices, the economy, unemployment, inflation, the housing market and the war. First, we must as a nation turn to God. I have, as many of you have and God has repeatedly said to me to tell the churches not to panic because He is still God and He will always be God. Why is this so important? You cannot operate in faith when you are bound by fear. We learned in part 1 that without faith it is impossible to please God. Everything we receive from God, do in God is by faith. How can you operate in faith in such fearful times? Let me share what has worked for me over the years.

1. Pray about everything and worry about nothing.

2. Worship, don’t worry.

3. Do your best and God will do the rest.

All we have to do is make sure we are doing are best to please God. Will those simple answers really work? Yes. Yes. Prayer still changes things. Worship still works. The Bible is still true.

Beloved, 2008 is not the year of panic but of new beginnings, to start afresh. How? By revisiting some ancient, proven methods that have never changed and will never change. It is simple, it is not rocket science but it works. God is saying, ‘I love you, let Me help you.’ He is saying ‘calm down, do not operate in fear, and do not turn to things that you know are wrong hoping it will help. It will not.’ Fear can cause us to make bad decisions. God knows we need answers.

Matthew 6:25-34:

25. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26. Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28. And why take ye thought for raiment. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin;

29. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31. Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink? Or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32. (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things;

33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

This is the Master speaking. This was a much harder time than what we are living in now. They were occupied by the Romans, poverty was everywhere and Jesus says “take no thought,” He is not saying be irresponsible. He will repeat this five or six times over the next ten verses so it must be important. In the Greek, take no thought means “do not worry.” Jesus is saying do not worry about food, water, clothes, housing. In short, He is saying do not give it a second thought.

Do you know what worry is? It is prolonged fear. Fear paralyzed your faith. Beloved, fear is so dangerous because fear and faith are exactly the same thing – both are beliefs in something that cannot be seen – or what is going to happen – and what you believe long enough you will receive. Worry never accomplishes anything. You cannot be productive. You cannot pray, you cannot worship when you worry. “Well, Brother John, these are our real issues.” Jesus did not say they were not. He said that worry will not help your issues. He knows you need this stuff and will tell you how to receive it and at the same time remind you that life is more than food and clothing, it is about a relationship with God. When we have that, we have more than just stuff, we have love, joy and peace and if you have stuff without peace what good is it anyway? A life without God is empty and lifeless. A life with God is abundant and full.

26. Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Notice how loving and tender Jesus speaks here. God says I take care of the animals and I will take care of you. You are a lot more valuable to God than an animal – contrary to what some in the world will tell you. Jesus did not die on the cross for animals, but to forgive the sins of man. When you ask God to forgive you and to come into your heart, He adopts you into His family. Please notice the word for God here is Father. I am a father and I take care of my children – don’t you? Of course you do! Do you see when our relationship is right with the Father, the Father then can care for us like a Father. Two things I must mention here is that 1) if a child’s behavior puts them in a place where we cannot help them, for example if you had a child on drugs and every time you gave them money they bought drugs, you would cut them off the from the money supply. We call this intervention. Our Father in heaven loves us so much that He will do the same if we leave Him no choice. It is better to lose stuff than our souls. 2) I pray that I do not offend anyone, but this is the truth straight from the Word of God. All of mankind is God’s creation, but until you accept Christ are your personal Lord and Savior you are not a child of God. God decries that none should perish, but all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God. However, we have to choose to allow Him to become our Heavenly Father and then it is only reasonable to assume we are to obey Him as a Father and then He can give us His Kingdom and will take care of everything we need and more.

27. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

Notice here that Jesus is asking if worry can change anything. We all know the answer to that question. It only makes things worse. I had rather work eight hours of hard labor than spend an hour in deep worry. Worry will wear you out physically, emotionally and spiritually and it cannot even add one inch to your height. How many hours have we all wasted worrying about something and it never happened? What a waste of time and energy! Or, we have worried about something and when it happened it was not nearly as bad as we anticipated, because things are rarely as bad as we think they will be. We have all survived things we thought we would never make it through – the loss of a loved one, a health crisis, etc.

Jesus is simply saying here that even if you choose to worry that it will not change anything for the good because worry causes panic. Part of what is happening in the stock market today is that people are responding to fear.

28. And why take ye thought for raiment. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin;

29. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

These three verses are a continuation of the same thing. God takes care of us, but notice the end of verse 30 – “O ye of little faith?” Why was their faith weak? Worry!

31. Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink? Or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32. (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things;

Gentiles at the time did not serve God, but they sought God’s blessing without seeking Him. We have all done this – sought the hand of God and not the heart of God. When we seek the heart of God, we receive what we need. In verse 32, notice the Father knows we need all this “stuff” and He will not deny it to His children as we would not deny it to our earthly children. Now, Jesus is about to give us the answer and it is simple. He is saying do not worry, but He is not saying to do nothing. He now tells us what we need to do instead of worrying and it is the cure for worrying – do something that works instead of worrying which does not work.

33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

“Seek ye first the Kingdom.” God is a Kingdom God and if we do what is right “all these things” will be added unto us. Do you see this? Why does our faith become weak. The answer is simple – because we are not spending enough time with God. I do not have a religion but a relationship with the Father. If I spend time with Him, I know Him well enough to know that He will take care of me. Have you ever spent time with God? Have you been in His presence? The peace and joy is overwhelming. The joy in and of itself is its own reward. He is wonderful. He is my Father so what am I worried about?

God is saying to us “make me first in your lives.” Sadly, I must confess that in looking back that at times God wasn’t always first in my life. Work is important, but we all must just put God first. Fun with the family is important, but we all must put God first. Stuff God has given us is important, but put God first. An example is that pastors tell me all the time that they cannot have revival because their people will not come to the services because they want to spend their time with their families enjoying all the stuff God has given them. Do you see how easy it is? They still love God but He just is not first in their lives anymore. There is no longer time for God, things are good and they think they really do not need anything. Well, beloved, we need Him now more than ever before and if we put Him first He will see to it as a loving Father that all these things will be given unto us. Please remind us God that all our blessings are from You. Beloved, please let us not take God for granted, but let us start making more time for the Father in our lives and make Him first.

I am afraid that God has been so good to us in American churches that in some places we have just become lazy. Do you ever have the time to thank Him for His goodness. I believe one of the good things coming out of our national crisis is people are getting hungry for God and they will begin to seek Him and God will send revival and blessings will begin to flow in revival.

34. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Notice how Jesus ties it all together. So do not worry. Spend that time seeking God and God will take care of today’s problems as well as tomorrow’s. Let us seek God together – that is the answer. As individuals it all starts with us, but for the issues facing our nation and the world which trickles down to us as individuals – well that is in Part 3.

Remember, God’s Holy Word works. It always works. We may have to make some changes in our lives but if we do the word will produce and the father will bless us, after all it is His Word.

Love,

Bishop John D. Ritcheson

Your Servant and Brother