Originally posted by @fmf
"Don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34
Is this really a good way for human beings to live their lives?
This has always been an interesting one for me personally. I used to worry a lot, still do a bit at times, but less so nowadays. However if I am honest that is more to do with the way I have managed my finances over time and the time of life I am in, rather than me leaning on and trusting in God.
This principle in play here is conjoined with the notion of being eternally saved (it is a birthright and spiritual condition not a licence or ticket) to DO good works and not worry about ones self. Let me explain; if one has a deep conviction, a trust in the Lord that they are saved, they don’t need to worry about themselves and they should be “freed” from “self” in order to do good works for others. If I can draw attention to this passage of scripture:
James 4:13-17
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Note especially the final verse. “Anyone”, not the saved, not the unsaved, “anyone”. This implies, to me at least, that “anyone” can do good works as thier conscience leads and to not do them is, for them, sinful. It takes effort to do good works and all of us, Christian and non Christian, are mostly concerned about ourselves and that is normal. The salvation, the freedom, the liberty that the NT speaks about is being able to not worry about yourself because you know you have security, you have an assurance, faith, and it is this liberty that should free the Christian from the worry of self to do good works. To not be doing good works does not mean one is not saved but it may mean they are being sinful because they are inwardly focused and “worrying” about themselves.