NO CARE

The wisdom of the fathers

NO CARE

What a care-burdened world this is! Jesus summed up its need in the burden of unrest, and promised a heart free from care. The supreme gift of God in Christ is peace. He is the God of Peace, and the gift of Jesus is the peace of God. He not only gives the divine peace, but He keeps in perfect peace. What is perfect peace but peace without anxiety and without care? "Be anxious for nothing." That is the command and promise of Jesus. The fully saved live without care.

Just inside my study door is the word "Ataraxia" in letters of gold. It was the gift of a friend years ago after a sermon I had preached on the word. Nearly every stranger that comes asks what it means, and when I answer "Without care," they pause and say, "Ah, is it possible?" Yes, wherever the Spirit of God dwells in the heart, sanctifying, perfecting, filling, unto all the will of God.

Business people sometimes hint that I should find it different if I were in business, but there are business men who have found the life that is radiant and without care. Often I am told that I should find it different if in these days I had sons and daughters, and that, I can imagine, would be quite likely; but they would be His as well as mine, and I cannot believe He would fail me. He never has failed. He cares, that I may be free from care.

The children of God have no more right to worry, than they have to get drunk. In the Spirit-sanctified, Spirit-possessed, Spirit-strengthened, Spirit-perfected, there is no anxiety, no worry, no care. Blessed negation! Blessed inhibition! I ask no greater blessedness than the perfection supplied by such blessed absences.

(from "The Call to Christian Perfection" by Samuel Chadwick)