Casting Our Cares
September 8, 2024
Sunday, September 8, 2024
Casting Our Cares
Meera Short
1 Peter 5:6-7 NKJV
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, 7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
1 Peter 5:6-7 AMPC
Therefore humble yourselves [demote, lower yourselves in your own estimation] under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you,
7 Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.
I am wanting to discuss today something that I truly believe we all must battle with: the anxious thoughts that we are bombarded with in our daily lives and how we can unburden ourselves from them. The everyday grind of life seems to bring pressure, and it seems to be intensifying. We have pressure in our relationships, with our jobs, with school, with our finances, with health, just living in our current world brings daily pressure. Three key areas that I want to examine are:
1- How are we to be as we face our cares?
2- How do we cast our cares?
3- What makes it all work?
1- How are we to be as we face our cares?
Be Humble:
I want to bring attention to the entire verses of 1 Peter 5:6-7. The beginning of this verse, in fact if we look at verse 5, begins by telling us that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. We are called to humble ourselves under His care. When we submit to His Lordship we can receive His grace. Humility simply means that I am to think more about what He wants and less of what I desire. As we go through this, it doesn’t mean that we are removed from whatever situations we face, it just means that He comes alongside us, if we are not antagonistic towards His ways, and He carries us through whatever we are facing.
Verse 8 (NKJV): Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. 10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. 11 To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Be Sober:
To be sober is not to be drunk. A drunk person is disoriented. They see things, hear things, and believe things that are not there. They are loose, their thinking is impaired, their judgment is misguided. They laugh when they shouldn’t, cry when they have no reason to cry; there simply seems to be a false sense of reality for people who are drunk. A drunk person becomes irrational in their thinking. Decisions can be made that cause much pain when someone is drunk. So, to be sober implies that one must have clarity of mind and be mentally sharp.
Be Vigilant:
This means to keep a careful watch for possible danger or difficulties. To be on guard, alert and active. A person who concentrates on noticing danger, a person who avoids danger.
The adversary, the devil, is set against us because we are righteous. His goal is to destroy us and displace us. Just like he did to Adam and Eve. But God in His mercy, showed His fatherly love, He came and covered them. Even though they had to leave their pristine environment, Father came and covered them, He provided for them, and still showed up to meet with them.
2- How do we cast our cares?
The word “care” used in this scripture means to worry or be pulled apart. It speaks of being anxious or having anxiety. Anxiety comes from the Greek word merimna – merizo which means to divide or draw in different directions or to be apprehensive.
We cast them:
Let us first examine the word casting. It means to throw upon with force, forcefully throw off a load. The Greek word picture of this literally means it’s like taking a heavy bundle and throwing it on the back of a camel. This word is used only two times in the New Testament.
Luke 19:35
Then they brought him to Jesus. And they threw their own clothes on the colt, and they set Jesus on him.
The people took their garments and threw them on the donkey’s back for Jesus to sit on.
So, we have here the picture of taking a back-breaking load, one that has us bent over, and throwing it on Jesus’s back.
Psalm 55:22 NKJV
Cast your burden on the Lord, And He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.
To have a sense of care/concern is normal. We are to be concerned about the well-being of others, (1 Cor 12:25). 1 Corinthians 7:33-34, when you’re married you’re concerned about the needs of your spouse. This is legitimate care and concern.
The cares in this passage of scripture speaks of the anxiety that I am referring to, the stuff that torments us and pulls us apart internally. This can come from fear of loss, fear of betrayal, fear of lack, fear of rejection, fear of not knowing, fear of the unknown. These are things that cause us to lose trust in God and inflict harm to ourselves and others.
Jesus warns us that the worries of this life and the cares of this world will render God’s Word inoperative and unfruitful in our lives.
Matthew 13:22 NKJV
Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.
Worry means to choke or to strangle. The root of this word, the etymology of it, comes from an old German word “wurgen”. It means to kill by gripping or squeezing the neck tightly. Webster’s 1st definition of this word means to harass by tearing, biting, or snapping, especially at the throat. To subject to persistent or nagging attention or effort – to afflict with mental distress or agitation, to make anxious.
It is a foreboding or brooding fear. It is like having an unreasonable amount of anxiety about things which one has no control over.
FEAR – False Evidence Appearing Real!
Someone has written that an average person’s anxiety is focused on:
• 40% — things that will never happen
• 30% — things about the past that can’t be changed
• 12% – things about criticism from others, mostly untrue
• 10% — about health, which gets worse with stress
• 8% — about real problems that will be faced
Charles Spurgeon “Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows but only empties today of its strength.”
I can tell when I have truly begun to cast my cares because of my sense of peace. My heart begins to recall every incident that God has brought me through. Hope becomes renewed, and joy surfaces.
3- What makes it all work?
Love makes it all work:
1 John 4:7-21 (MSG)
7-10 My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.
11-12 My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!
13-16 This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we’ve seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.
17-18 God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
19 We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.
20-21 If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.
Perfect Love casts out all fear. Love is perfected in us when we love others.
When we walk in love we are not fearful of others. Love will cause us to treat others with the highest integrity, decency and respect. Love will cause us to consider others better than ourselves, we will treat others with the best intentions. When we do this, we have no reason to fear others and what they may do to us.
Proverbs 28:1 NKJV
The wicked flee when no one pursues, But the righteous are bold as a lion.
Jesus cares for us. He is thoughtful. He comes alongside and quickly and readily accepts what we load unto His shoulders.
Hebrews 7:25 AMPC
Therefore He is able also to save to the uttermost (completely, perfectly, finally, and for all time and eternity) those who come to God through Him, since He is always living to make petition to God and intercede with Him and intervene for them.
Psalm 68:19 NKJV
Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loads us with benefits, the God of our salvation! Selah
Isaiah 64:4 MSG
Since before time began no one has ever imagined, no ear heard, no eye seen, a God like you who works for those who wait for him. You meet those who happily do what is right, who keep a good memory of the way you work.
My Responsibility:
1- Am I walking in love?
2- Am I reminding the Lord of His promises?
3- Am I thinking of the size of my problems or the size of my God?