Copyright © 1982

All Rights Reserved

BT710
Printed in U.S.A.
Oral Roberts
Evangelistic Association, Inc.
1 How to Get Rid of
Worry
Dear Brother Roberts: My
husband is out of work and needs a job.
And the bill collectors are driving me
crazy. We're trying but it's really hard.
We lost our cars but we're trying to

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 save everything else ...

Dear Brother Roberts: My

husband has a drinking problem and
I'm finding it too difficult for me. I'm
trying to decide whether to end the
marriage and sell our home and face
life alone, hoping for peace ...

Dear Brother Roberts: All my

family is out in sin. I have a 17-year-old
daughter and I don't know where she
is. And just today I received news that
my little granddaughter has some
disease the doctors don't know
anything about...

I receive many letters like this each week

from people who are nearly out of their
minds with worry—worry about all kinds of
problems which are forcing them down into
the depths of despair and depression ... and
YOU may be worried too.
But God is concerned about your worry.
And so am I. Like me, you are human and you

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worry. Also, because the devil acts like the
devil he is, he seeks to make you worry.
But I have good news. God loves you ...
so much ... He has given you everything it
takes to drive worry out of your mind:
FAITH. For "God hath given to every
person the measure of faith" (Romans 12:3).
That means you have your own personal
amount of God-given faith.
Your faith is powerful when released
(loosed) to God to move EVERY mountain of
worry attacking you. Jesus says to make your
faith as a seed you plant ... SEED-FAITH ...
then say to your mountain, "Be thou
removed" ... and it will obey you (Matthew
17:20).
The certainty that your faith—as you
loose it to God—will work against your worry
is more certain than the sun rising tomorrow
morning.

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 Act on Your Faith ... Instead of Your Fear

You ask, "Do I really have faith?"

Yes, you really do. God said you do. And
I believe God's Word is 100 percent true. So
nail the nail right there: you have faith.
AND ... you can LOOSE your faith to God,
who gave it to you in the first place—and it
will get rid of your worry.
I am writing this booklet because I believe
that you have your own faith, that you will
loose your faith to God, and that you will get
rid of worry!
You must make a decision about what you
believe. You must decide in your own mind
that God has given you a full measure of faith,
as He said in His Word. You must decide in
your own mind that you have the God-given
capacity to release (or loose) your faith to
God. You must decide to make your faith a
seed you plant ... by DOING SOMETHING
with your faith—sending it to God and

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trusting in Him as the Source of your freedom
from worry.

What Is Worry?

Worry is an emotion of your will which

you act on because you are afraid of someone
or something. Worry is based on fear, usually
fear of something happening in the future that
you can't handle. And the Bible says, "Fear
hath torment" (1 John 4:18). It also says,
"God hath not given us the spirit of fear..."
(2 Timothy 1:7).
Then where does fear come from? Fear
comes from the devil, but not from the devil
alone. Fear comes because you and I believe
wrong. Or, to put it a better way, we don't
always believe that God is absolutely our
Source. So our believing goes awry. It gets off
the track. It goes in the wrong direction and
fails to reach its desired source: GOD.
In the absence of our right believing—
loosing our faith to God as our Absolute

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Source—fear enters our mind and begins to
take over our emotions. Fear misdirects our
thinking about the help God is to us if we only
put our trust in Him.
Now here's what I'm saying: As darkness
is the absence of light, so fear is the absence
of using our faith rightly toward God. Fear
produces worry and soon we are worrying
instead of believing God.
Worry is an act of our will, something we
do ourselves. It doesn't automatically come to
us. It comes because we react to something
bad, or something we believe is bad. Our
reaction becomes the tool the devil needs to
pry open our mind and pour it full of fear so
we will act on our fear instead of our faith,
and start worrying. Soon we are fretting,
complaining, striking out, or withdrawing to
ourselves.
Therefore, when you understand that fear,
which produces worry, is an act of your
will...of your believing... you can understand
how to deal with it and get rid of it.

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 Let Something Good Happen

Another part of fear is believing in

something bad. It seems so natural to believe
the bad. I think this is because in failing to
believe right—that is, failing to loose your
faith to God—you create a vacuum where the
bad enters almost by itself. Where there is
nothing positive—no faith—fear and worry
will enter every time.
A weed grows if no one pulls it up and
plants a more powerful seed. All the farmer
has to do to get weeds is nothing. If you don't
plant good seeds ... don't cultivate the seeds ...
don't harvest the crop ... the weeds take over.
SOMETHING GOOD is not just words. I
say it thousands of times each month, each
year: SOMETHING GOOD IS GOING TO
HAPPEN TO YOU!
A doctor friend said, "Brother Roberts,
my mother is over 90 years old. She got up
one Sunday morning just as we turned our TV

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set on and you were saying, 'Something good
is going to happen to you!' She rubbed the
sleep from her eyes and said, 'Let 'er happen,
sonny!'"
I thought that was great. She heard
something good and she wanted it to happen.
That's the spirit I'm talking about: LET
SOMETHING GOOD HAPPEN. Enough of
the bad will happen without cooperating with
it ... or helping it along. But SOMETHING
GOOD has to be reached out for like a
swimmer swimming upstream. Going against
the tide. Resisting the devil ... that's the way to
get SOMETHING GOOD. We need to stop
believing in something bad and start believing
in SOMETHING GOOD.

By an Act of Your Will, Loose Your Faith to

God

Two-thirds of the earth is covered by

water. At one time man was landlocked, afraid
of the water.

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 One day someone built a boat and found it
would ride the water, so he built many more
boats and put them on the water too. People
lost their fear of water, and by building boats
to ride in, stopped their worry of water. Sure,
they had to respect the oceans and rivers and
take reasonable precautions. But they didn't
have to allow their fear to drive them into
worry anymore, because now they could ride
in their boats on top of the water.
A boat is made for the water. It is really
useless when it's out of the water. But if you
punch a hole in your boat you allow the water
to pour in, and the same water which makes
your boat float will make it sink.
Your faith is like a boat, a powerful safe
boat that will keep you on top of worry. Not
using your faith is like punching a hole in
your boat. Keeping your faith inside you
instead of releasing it to God will let in the
floods of worry.
This is just like us and our faith. We need
to be in the world to serve God. But we must

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keep the world and its worries out of us. A
boat must be in the water to be of any value.
But we must keep the water out of the boat.
Boats are built by DOING SOMETHING.
By doing right things. Using (releasing) your
faith is doing something too. It's believing
right. Right believing is your taking the faith
in your heart—that God gave you a full
measure of—and by an act of your will,
LOOSING IT TO GOD.
A man said to me, "I have all the faith in
the world."
The Lord gave me a word of knowledge
for him. I said, "That's your problem. You still
have it."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Faith in your heart was not put there to
remain inactive and unloosed to God. Just as
God gave you faith, He gave you the power to
release it. Only as you release it will it work
for you."

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 He thought about it, looked at me, and
said, "That's the first time I ever knew I was
supposed to release my faith for God to
respond to it."

Remember, the Devil Can't Make You Worry

Several years ago while we were doing

one of our television specials at the NBC
studios in Burbank, California, I met the noted
comic, Flip Wilson. Flip's favorite line was,
"The devil made me do it."
After we talked a while, I asked him,
"Flip, why do you say, 'The devil made me do
it'?'"
He laughed. "Oh, it's just a funny line."
Then he grew serious. "Oral," he said, "on
a recent Sunday morning, my sister-in-law
was deathly ill and we had to rush her to the
hospital. We are close in our family and we all
were praying and calling out to God. Then
you came on the air saying your famous

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SOMETHING GOOD IS GOING TO
HAPPEN TO YOU! And when you said for
everyone to join hands and let you pray for a
miracle, we all joined hands. With the tears
streaming down our faces we held hands. We
prayed as you prayed. And suddenly we felt
the power of God come."
I asked, "Did your sister-in-law get help?"
Flip blinked back the tears and grabbed
my hand. "Oral Roberts," he said, "I've
believed in prayer all my life. But your
coming on at that moment telling us to do
something was exactly what we needed.
Otherwise, my line would have really been
true."
"You mean, The devil made me do it'?"
"What I mean is, we were worried sick
over my sister-in-law and we were believing
the devil was making us worry. Maybe the
devil helped make us worry. But when we
started praying with you, the devil had no
power and my sister-in-law came out of it just

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fine!"
You don't have to put up with worry.
When you are in darkness you can strike a
match, turn on a flashlight, flip a light switch,
turn on your car lights ... and the darkness will
go. God gives you faith to bring up out of
your heart, sending it to Him ... then worry
will go.

Handle Your Worry With Faith

Worry can be handled. Not by cursing,

crying, taking drugs, filling up on alcohol,
striking out at somebody, wallowing in self-
pity, or blaming God.
Worry can be handled because you have
faith. It gives you direct access to God as you
release it. It takes you straight to Him who is
the Absolute Source of ridding you of worry.
Worry can be handled. There is a Holy
Bible near you which contains the Word of
God. A church is near where a minister

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preaches the Word. Whether he or she is an
orator or not makes no difference. You can
hear a passage read from the Bible which will
cause your faith to be loosed inside you like a
pickax looses gold from a crevice.
Here's what the Bible says about the
importance of hearing preaching from God's
Word:
For whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. How
then shall they call on him in whom
they have not believed? And how shall
they believe in him of whom they have
not heard? And how shall they hear
without a preacher? And how shall
they preach, except they be sent? As it
is written, How beautiful are the feet of
them that preach the gospel of peace,
and bring glad tidings of good things!
(Romans 10:13-15).
If I start to worry it always helps if I can
preach or hear someone else preach God's
Word. Hearing the Word is like drilling for

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oil.
I grew up in the oil fields of Pontotoc
County, Oklahoma. Papa sold his farm the
year before oil was discovered in our area in
order to "go preach the gospel." Papa didn't
get oil but his brother did.
As a boy I used to watch the workers
bring in the big drilling rigs and put the
heavy-duty drill bit into the ground and start
driving it down, down, down. In those days
you knew when you struck oil because when
the bit reached the pool down in the earth, the
oil would start flowing up clear over the deck
and the rig built on it, sometimes gushing
hundreds of feet into the sky.
A man near us had a "gusher" come in one
day and we saw him run right into the oil
flow, coming out black and oily. He shouted,
"I got it! I got it!" And he did.
But the oil had to be drilled for. Oil
workers, called roughnecks, would get the
machinery working, causing the drill bit to

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keep going until they hit a dry hole or a
gusher. They were sad after a dry hole and the
oil people often went broke. But when they
struck oil and it flowed forth, they were a
happy bunch.
Your faith is in you, like oil in the ground.
The drill bit is your faith, the worker is your
will. Get to work reaching down inside for
your faith to cause it to flow up toward God.
God GUARANTEES you that your worry will
go.

Learn the Jell-O Lesson

It was a hot day. I came in for supper

wanting some Jell-O for dessert. Evelyn said,
"I can handle that."
I watched her heat some water, open a box
of Jell-O, mix in the gelatin, and set it in the
refrigerator to jell.
While I watched her mix the Jell-O,
Hebrews 11:1 came alive in me: "Now faith

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is the substance of things hoped for..."
When the water was hot, I saw Evelyn open
the box and pour the substance into the water.
I said, "Why are you doing that, Evelyn?"
She said, "Well, that's the substance the
makers of Jell-O sent in this box. But I've got
to pour it into the water, then let it set in the
refrigerator to make Jell-O."
I thought, why, that's the way God said
our faith is to act in relation to our needs. The
basic ingredient of Jell-O is the substance in
the little box. Evelyn had it. But she had to
pour it out, then dissolve it in a container, and
place it in the refrigerator. Then she hoped for
the liquid to set and that I would be happy
when I received my portion at supper—and I
was. What she hoped for had substance ... and
the substance gave her the hope to proceed to
make the Jell-O.
I praise God that He has not left us alone
with our worry. He has given us faith which is
"the substance of things hoped for..." That

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faith-substance is IN YOU this very moment.
You can get it out of you by an act of your
will, turning yourself to God with your full
attention, and know in your heart you can
hope with good results.

Focus on the Truth

Worry, I find, often comes by looking at

the circumstances and conditions as they are...
or seem to be. When viewed in this way, the
problems always look bigger than the
solution.
There used to be a TV show where a
detective, upon inquiring into a case, would
say, "Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts." It
made good sense it seemed. This was the
detective's way of getting the facts.
Well, THE FACTS ARE NOT ALWAYS
THE TRUTH!
For example, while Jesus was hanging on
the cross He was forsaken, suffering, and

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dying. Those were the facts. But the TRUTH
is: HE WAS OVERCOMING SIN,
SICKNESS, DEMONS, FEAR, DEATH,
AND HELL. He was not suffering because the
devil had gained the victory over Him. He was
enduring the penalty for our sins, the pain of
our sicknesses, and giving us a New Covenant
wherein we can live abundantly and
everlastingly. The suffering of His death on
the cross resulted in the glory of His
resurrection. He said, "Because I live, ye
shall live also" (John 14:19).
The same principle is true for your life
too. The facts you face daily are not
necessarily the truth.
The fact may be that you are lost from
God ... the truth is, when you call upon the
name of the Lord you shall be saved (Romans
10:13).
The fact may be that you are ill ... the
truth is, by the stripes on Jesus' back you were
healed (1 Peter 2:24).

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 The fact may be that you are facing severe
financial problems ... the truth is, when you
plant your seeds of faith God will multiply
them back in a miracle financial harvest. "But
my God shall supply all your need
according to his riches in glory by Christ
Jesus" (Philippians 4:19).
The fact may be that you are confused and
don't know which way to turn ... the truth is,
the Holy Spirit knows exactly what the will of
God is for your life, and as you join in His
prayer for you, He will intercede to the Father
for you, according to the perfect will of God,
in a prayer language—the origin of which is
not in your intellect (Romans 8:26,27; 1
Corinthians 14:14, 15).

Put Your Faith in the Absolute God

Jesus said, "Have faith in God."

Why would He have told us to take our
faith and have it IN GOD? You could say,
"Because Jesus knew God is God." And that

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would be true. But look at it a little more
deeply Jesus said, "Have faith in God,"
because God is ABSOLUTE. God is
absolutely God. As a person, sometimes you
and I may become less than a person. It's
certainly possible and all too often it happens.
But God is never less than himself. He is
totally God ... God absolutely. God is
unchangingly EVERYTHING. He is the
O N E . . . the ONLY O N E . . . that we can
depend on absolutely. He cannot lie (Numbers
23:19). He cannot change His nature (Malachi
3:6). He cannot be bought off (Matthew 4:1-
10). No divination can work against Him
(Numbers 23:23; Ezekiel 13:23). He is eternal
(Jeremiah 10:10; Deuteronomy 33:27). He
never fails (Deuteronomy 31:6). I could go on
and on. But to know that God is absolutely
God, is saying it all.
So Jesus is saying, "Put your faith in the
only One you can have it in ... 100 percent...
loose your faith to the only One who will
respond to you as Absolute God."

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 We read in the Bible about the three
young Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, and how King Nebuchadnezzar of
Babylon tried to get them to compromise their
faith in the Living God. They refused. The
king didn't stop there. He threatened to throw
them alive into a burning fiery furnace heated
seven times hotter than ordinary.
Suddenly they were tested as never
before. "You'll bow and call me God, or
you'll burn in my furnace. And who is that
God who will deliver you out of my hand?"
(Daniel 3:15).
You and I are faced with compromising
our faith too. Only the time and place and
mode are different. We must make a decision
to believe God, or worry ourselves into such
fear that we give up ... and go down.
The devil says, "Either compromise your
faith in God or I will destroy you with the
problem you are facing."
The three young men felt fear in the pit of

24
their stomach. Their mouth became dry And
worry hit them so hard that for a moment they
must have thought the end of the world had
come.
As one man said about his testing time,
"At first I was so frightened and worried that I
thought I was going to die. Then I was afraid I
wasn't going to die."
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego faced
their fear, their worry. They didn't get drunk.
They didn't run. They didn't try to cover up.
They said,
We are not intimidated by your
threats. We know the God we serve is
able to deliver us from your hand and
from your burning furnace. Whether
He will choose to do so or whether He
has other plans for our lives, we do not
know. What we do know, and what we
want you to know, is: either way, we
are not going to bow to you as God.
Their worry was gone because their fear

25
was gone. Loosing their faith to an Absolute
God, their Eternal Source, they received from
Him the strength to take their stand. Live or
die, they would take God's way.
How many times do you and I feel, oh, if
we only had faith like that!
We do have that kind of faith ... plenty of
it. Our fiery furnace is as threatening to us as
theirs was to them. But God is as ABSOLUTE
today as He was then. Their God is our God,
their Source our Source. They were able,
facing this horrible way to die, to loose their
faith and put themselves in God's hands. You
and I have the courage to do the same, IF WE
ONLY TRY.
It so happened that God's plan was for
them NOT to be consumed by their fiery
furnace ... and they survived. But had God
chosen for their bodies to be consumed by
fire, they still would have survived, because
no fiery furnace can destroy the real person,
the inner person, who is loosing his faith to
God. Our LIFE is in our Source, whether in a

26
fiery furnace or out of it.

Things I See

As I look at my partners with their needs,

fears, hurts, worries, I see and feel them in my
spirit, as God said I would when I began this
ministry in 1947. I see them toiling, trying to
make ends meet. I see them sick, needing the
best medical care ... but the PRAYER OF
FAITH TOO. I see them looking to the City
of Faith, their faith stirred either for
themselves coming or their loved ones... now
and in generations to come. I see my partners
GIVING AND RECEIVING, SOWING AND
REAPING. I see them feeling deep within that
this is their ministry as much as it is mine, and
I see their commitment to see it through.
I see new partners just coming into the
light of SEED-FAITH, making their covenant
with God and understanding, like us, that they
are "joint-heirs with Jesus Christ" (Romans
8:17).

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 I see partners rising up everywhere with
new HOPE, new COURAGE, new
EXPECTATION for the miracles they have
got to have—to survive and live Jesus'
abundant life.
I see the Holy Spirit being poured out
upon millions. I see the charismatic power
taking root everywhere in the Church, in
prayer groups, in ministries like ours.
I see UNITY coming, with bigotry and
prejudice being laid aside, opening up God's
SUPER HIGHWAY to the outpouring of
miracles like we have never personally
experienced before. I see HOPE ... HOPE ...
HOPE.
I see worry and fear losing their power,
the devil taking his hands off God's property
—you and me, and millions throughout this
earth.
I see a straight and narrow way Jesus left
us, but broad enough to carry each one of us
through all our worries, trials, and tribulations

28
straight into His arms. I see us missing hell
and reaching heaven.
I see the mass miracle coming, because I
believe in the Resurrection! I see us all
receiving our healing—part here, and all in
the resurrection ... our resurrection.
I see death losing its power over our
bodies as our souls, at that time, soar beyond
this mortal clay to God, our Father, who at
Jesus' Second Coming will raise our bodies
from the dead.
So let the devil roar. Let the unbelievers
misunderstand and oppose. Let the powers-
that-be try to stop us. Our God reigns. Our
Redeemer lives. Our faith is strong ... and we
are loosing it to God bit by bit... every hour,
every day.
The clouds are lifting! The dawn is
breaking! Jesus is indwelling us by His Spirit.
We are on the March of Faith. The angels
surround us. God overshadows us. Underneath
are the everlasting arms.

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 When this earth has been blown from its
socket and burned to a cinder, we'll still be
standing on the Word of God, which endures
forever. And we shall also endure ... and live!
Don't doubt in the dark what God has
given you in the light. Loose your faith now ...
and get rid of worry.
Friend, I want to encourage you—to
remind you—that God really is in control of
this world... and He's in control of your life.
He wants you to stop worrying ... and you
CAN.
You do have faith.
You can loose your faith to God. You can
absolutely trust God to hear your prayer and
deliver you from worry. Rise up with new
hope, courage, and expectation for the
miracles God has for you.

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 Now Let's Pray

Father, we come to You, not in our name

or in our strength but in the name of Christ
our Redeemer, and we pray one for another,
expecting miracles.
And now, dear friend, may God release
you from tension and worry and fear, and lift
up your spirit and give you the courage of
great faith.
I pray for that healing that your body
needs—for your hurts and your pain. That
God will draw very near you this moment and
lift that suffering from your body.
I claim these things for you now ... and
expect your miracles to start NOW ... in the
strong name of Jesus. Amen and amen.

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 I Care About You

I want to invite you to write me. When

you tell me what you're going through, I can
know better how to write you back ... and how
to pray and help you believe God for the
miracles you need. I care about you. I want to
encourage you in the Lord and help you learn
to get your needs met. Simply address your
letter to:

Oral Roberts
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74171

In Canada write:

Oral Roberts
Toronto, Ontario M4P 2G2

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