An excessive anxiety about the innocent things of this life

An excessive anxiety about the innocent things of this life

(J.C. Ryle, “The Gospel of Luke” 1858)

“Be on your guard, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and the cares of life–or that day will come on you unexpectedly like a trap!” Luke 21:34-35 

The exhortation before us should teach us the great importance of an unworldly heart. The “cares of this life” are placed side by side with carousing and drunkenness. 

Excess in eating and drinking, is not the only excess which injures the soul. There is an excessive anxiety about the innocent things of this life–which is just as ruinous to our spiritual prosperity, and just as poisonous to the soul. 

Never, never let us forget–that we may make spiritual shipwreck on lawful things–as really and truly as on open vices! Happy is he who has learned to hold the things of this world with a loose hand, and to believe that seeking first the kingdom of God, “all other things shall be added to him!” Matthew 6:33