Speaker: Bill Simpson

Our circumstances do not shape the way we view God; God shapes the way we view our circum-stances. God is active, God is sovereign, and God is personal. And because those are true, you can have peace when circumstances seem out of control.

The essence of who we are & the direction of our lives flows out of our hearts, which means everything about us can be affected by what we allow to touch our hearts. Whatever influences us internally will impact the core of who we are, & the direction of our lives—good or bad.

You’re always going to have decisions that you have to make. That’s inevitable. But those decisions don’t need to lead to stress. Instead, you can operate with confidence of God’s wisdom, which in turn will help you live a stressless life by filling you with God’s peace.

Jesus Christ changes the way we live. Christ living in us & through us should transform us from the inside out. The presence of Jesus should radically change how we relate to other people.

When we break away from God’s designs for our money—whether intentionally or unintentionally—we bring stress down on ourselves.

As a Christ follower, you will never remove stress from your daily schedule until everything else in your day is ordered around time with Jesus. Conversely: your daily schedule will never be saturated in God’s peace until everything else in your day is ordered around time with Jesus. Time with Jesus ought to be the building block on which the rest of your day’s activity is built.

Passing the stress test of life doesn’t mean removing stressors from life; it’s not about the absence of difficulties. It’s about the presence of God’s peace amid those difficulties.

When we face a situation out of or beyond our control but try to handle it anyway, we will inevitably feel stress, anxiety, worry. … We were never intended deal with something as harmful and corrosive as stress.

Even if your greatest “what if” does come to pass, God will be with you, & He will be enough.