“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that
He may exalt you in due time. 7. Casting your care (anxieties) upon Him; for He cares for you.” These are times that breed anxiety. As I write this, Israel and Gaza are on the brink of war. That seems so far away, but the world is so small that it does affect us. We are facing a huge financial crisis, and the two political parties need to solve it, but I don’t really see a spirit of compromise from either party. Both are holding righteously to their positions. China is out there with a powerful army and a desire to rule the world. Putin has put Russia in about the same position that they were in the Cold War. Plus, from my perspective, we have lost our spiritual focus and almost anything goes. Have I made you anxious yet? But the Bible tells us not to be anxious. I know that I have used this text a lot, but it fits so well here that I must use it again: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make your requests known unto God, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7) Peter reminded us in the above text that we can cast our “care (anxiety) upon Him (God).” Why? We can do that “because He cares for us.” The point is that we need to be reminded that we live in a world that is under the care of God. I know that it doesn’t seem like it sometimes. In fact, we see this attitude in a lot of the psalms. It just seems sometimes that God is not present, is not listening, or does not care. One of the questions asked in Psalms is “How long?” Here is a prime example from Psalm13:1-2: “How long will you forget me, Lord? forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2. How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” David felt surrounded by his enemies and he felt that God had forgotten him. This is the same man, who as a youth, fought the nine foot tall Goliath, yet at this time he was anxious. You have probably felt “God-forsaken” at times because the anxieties of your life did not seem to be abated, even though you believed in God and asked for His help. In those times we need to remember two things about God: (1) He always hears us when we pray and (2) He answers in His own way and in His own time. We go to Him in faith, asking Him for His solution, but we want Him to answer us based on our solution. The fact is that when we pray, we need to trust God and surrender everything into His hands. He knows what we are anxious about, and He wants to answer us based on what He knows the real solution is. We need to learn that when we take our anxieties to God, He starts to answer immediately, though it does not seem so to us. This is what Peter meant when he wrote: “casting all your (anxieties) upon Him…” We are not casting our anxieties into space. We are casting our anxieties upon the creator, master and ruler of the universe. There is no more powerful source to which we can go. We just need to remember this. We also need to remember that we cast our anxieties on Him, “because He cares for us.” Our hope is not in seeing all of our anxieties disappear but in the God who loves us and on whom we can depend. Let me share with you the final two verses of Psalm 13:5-6: “But I have trusted in your mercy, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. 6. I will sing unto the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.” These two verses greatly differ from the first two verses where David accused God of forgetting him and “hiding His face” from him. He remembered who God was/is and just cast’ those cares upon Him, trusting Him to handle the situation for him. The world has always been an anxious place. We just have to put our faith in God and remember that He will take us over, around or through these anxieties. Believe it! Bro. Joe
1 Comment
Chad
11/29/2012 02:00:01 am
I needed this today!
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