Counting promises is better than counting blessings

Worry is a disease. It can eat at you relentlessly and steal your joy, your focus, and your health. Such a terrible disease needs a powerful antidote and God has not left us empty handed. In fact, he has filled our hand with a glorious book that will deal a decisive blow to the scourge of worry. But, like all medications, you must take it as prescribed. Poor application means false hope and a no cure.

One of the glorious verses in His Word that deals with the issue of worry is Philippians 4:6.

Philippians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

This verse is wonderfully full. It gives us the negative command (be anxious for nothing), the positive command (let your requests be made known), how to apply it (by prayer and supplication), when to apply it (in everything), and lastly the attending attitude (with thanksgiving).

All of it is important, but I think one phrase has a unique importance. The prepositional phrase “with thankfulness” changes everything. If you are going pray and make supplication while being thankful, that means there is an undergirding reality that causes thankfulness through all the praying and supplicating. Thankfulness doesn’t just happen. Something creates it. What is the reality that creates thankfulness while you are praying?

One possibility is the reality of all of your blessings. You have heard the hymn and probably seen it on placards in countless kitchens, “Count your blessings, name them one by one…” There is a place for this. Psalm 103 says “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his benefits.” We should be thankful for the blessings we have received. You haven’t deserved them, and yet by grace you have enjoyed so many.

But there can be a major problem with this. The medicine of Philippians 4:6 will not work if “counting blessings” is how you apply it. Blessings are not sufficient to maintain unceasing thankfulness. Why? Because blessings come and go. Sadly, that coming and going is the very thing we worry about. The things and the people we have received will be the things that are being taken from us or threatened to be taken. So if your thankfulness is based upon the blessings of things and people, then when the blessings are gone or threatened, so will be your thankfulness.

So what is the undergirding reality that must be in place for thankfulness to always flow? It is the good news that you are reconciled to God through Christ and He is sovereignly working all things together for your good. This is the ultimate good news and the source of eternal and unending thanksgiving. All other blessings are peripheral. They may be there or they may not. If they are there, they are enjoyed to the glory of God. If not, then as Psalm 73:26 says “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

You are to be so controlled by this reality that thankfulness is always pouring out of you. You are no longer counting blessings, you are counting all the promises that are “yes” in Christ. You are thankful for Christ’s atonement, justification, your adoption, Christ’s intercession, Spirit-sealing, Spirit-filling, sanctification, God’s wisdom, God’s lovingkindness, God’s power, and so much more. These realties are yours through the gospel and they are the rock upon which you stand. And when you are standing on it, worry and anxiety simply cease to exist. Just as darkness can’t exist in the presence of light, so worry can’t exist in the presence of gospel-created thankfulness. If you get distracted from the gospel and thankfulness fades, worry will take its place. In like manner, worry fades when thankfulness is pushing it out. Sure, you can be thankful for the wrong things. And just like a false hope, a misplaced thankfulness will eventually fail and leave you twice as worried. But the good news will never cease or even fade.

What you need is a deep embrace of the gospel. It alone is the true engine of thankfulness, and thankfulness is the destroyer of worry. Press on in this and watch peace come riding in on the coattails of thankfulness as it always does.