“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”-{1 Peter 5:6-7}

J B Phillips has a paraphrase

“You can throw the whole weight of your anxieties upon Him, for you are His personal concern.”

Peter writes to the suffering believers and tells them to cast all, the whole of their anxieties upon The LORD,  literally he writes that “it matters to Him concerning you”!

How beautiful that the Eternal God, Creator of Heaven and earth, in need of nothing or no one outside of Himself is intimately acquainted with you, your circumstances, concerns and “it matters to Him concerning you.” Maybe time to take a break and meditate upon that. A verse beforehand He is made known as “The Mighty Hand of God,” which speaks of His presence and power, all powerful One is concerned with what concerns you. There is nothing too little, if it concerns you, it concerns Him. There is nothing too big, if it concerns you it concerns Him, because “it matters to Him concerning you!” For you are of personal concern to Him. How beautiful, wonderful, comforting for the anxious heart.

For Hagar who had been banished by Abraham’s wife Sarah -{Read Genesis 16:1-6}. She was all alone, cut off, it concerned Him as He sought her out, because she mattered to Him, she was of  personal concern to Him. To the demoniac whom the best society could do was put him in chains to try and control him, the LORD Jesus sought him out and clothed him in a right mind freeing him up because he was of personal concern to Him!

The woman at the well who had been involved in various sexual relationships, ostracized, the LORD Jesus said He had to go through Samaria, not around it as had been the custom of many, because she was of personal concern to Him.  On the cross, He looked down and told one of His disciples to take care of Mary, because she was of personal concern to Him. For those who had crucified Him, He asked the Father to forgive them for they know not what they are doing, because they were of personal concern to Him! He was on that cross for you, because you are of personal concern to Him!

The word “CARES”-{Melo} means “to be interested in, to show watchful care and affection, or to show concern for.” And what is beautiful this is not a one time or once in a while, never sure, uncertain if it always applies to you, for it is a “verb,” it is in the present tense, which means God continually cares affectionately, is interested and concerned for you! His care is unbreakable, immovable, everlasting is His personal concern towards those whom Peter writes to and towards…you! Do you believe that? How would we practically prove that to ourselves? One way is through times when we are tempted to anxiety. Anxiety in itself is not sin, but when we succumb to it then it is sin, as it is an attack on the character of God and a statement that though He may mean well, He cannot be trusted. So if He cannot be trusted, then who or where do we turn to and what or who we turn to displaces Him, and is elevated in our thinking and displaces God and we are saying, “I can trust_____ because they, it, cares for me.” At times we fall back to relying on ourselves and that is pride!  Falsely believing, we in ourselves are sufficient and that we contain the sufficient spiritual resources within us to handle the situation. That is pride! And Peter says God is opposed, stands in opposition to Pride.

  • Pride will not humble itself.
  • Pride will not cast anxieties upon Him, instead carrying them, Because…
  • Pride doubts that God personally cares for them!

“ Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”-{Mark 4:38-40}. The word “care” {melo} is the same word Peter uses. Note. this is how they all felt, for it says, “THEY woke Him and said to Him…” Note, that “fear,” was the motion that they succumbed to and out of it came doubt and accusation, and misrepresenting Him. In Luke 12 fear and anxiety travel together, and in that chapter are one of the combinations that seek to hinder the believers from seeking as the priority the Kingdom of God!

What about the time the LORD who had miraculously displayed His mighty power on behalf of the Israelite people in sending 10 plagues to show His power to Pharaoh who brazenly asked, “Who is the LORD that I should obey Him?” Pride, exalting himself, treating the LORD with contempt. And God takes His times and sends plaque after plague yet he would not repent and in the end his army was drowned in the sea. God miraculously delivered His people who all walked across on dry land when He split the sea!!! He provided for them and told them He would give them a land for their own. He had shown His care for them because they were of personal concern to Him.

The people sent out ten spies, all but two came back and  gave a bad report.

“But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” “-{Numbers 13:31 -33}

They spoke about the power of their enemy and the people in response embraced their report and rejected the word of the two who told them to trust God and His promise. They yielded to fear, because they doubted He personally cared for them! They rejected His promise, they rejected Him who had promised. They rejected the history of seeing His care for them. They rejected Him and chose to replace His Word with the word of the spies, who were human! They rejected God and then later on accused Him that He had brought them out there to kill them! How often this is a a pattern in our sinful thinking. Once we doubt, reject God cares for us we spiral down into thinking the worst will happen us and the worst about God that He cannot be trusted, that He has an ulterior motive than one of goodness and caring for us. It happens with  these people and also happened with the disciples in the boat,”Do you not care” are You not personally concerned for us? And what did they accuse Him next of ? “Do you not care that we are PERISHING!” Were they perishing? No! Did they “feel” they were? Yes! So they went with what they thought and felt and raised , elevated it above Him. Had they not been with Him and seen His care for them and others, and yet, when difficulties arise what is in their hearts as often comes out of our hearts come to the surface. And it reveals we have a heart problem, a trust issue, a thinking problem, and we need to humble ourselves UNDER His mighty Hand and ask Him to help us not yield to anxiety, fear, pride, but to take Him at His Word, for He is trustworthy and we are of personal concern to Him!

Sometimes we need to ask Him to help remind us of people, events in Scripture even in difficult times how He showed His care for them, such as Paul in 2 Timothy where He delivered  him FROM difficulties… and though he sometimes Delivers from… there are times He  does not deliver but Sustains us IN,  with His grace, such as when He did not deliver him from the painful “thorn” the word was used to speak of a wooden peg for a tent that was used to torture someone with. But look how He cared for Him, by telling him, His grace was sufficient for him, His power was made perfect in weakness, and Paul’s response was not accusation against Him not caring, but He embraced and gloried that in dependence upon the LORD, he had grace, empowering, and His power unleashed in Paul’s weakness! Often we wrongly think if God really cares for us, He will keep us out of trials, sufferings, but not so, we are here as His Ambassadors to be about His business. Paul in prison said,“I Paul the prisoner of Christ for the sake of YOU Gentiles”-{Eph 3:1}. He was the LORD’S and in prison he saw he was there for others spiritual benefit, because he knew they were of personal concern to Him! Instead of been controlled by circumstances he used them to seek God’s business.

To the Philippian church he wrote from prison and said,”brothers and sisters I want you to know my circumstances have worked out to advance the Gospel.” He had an eternal perspective in his difficulties. for he knew that not only God care for him, but the souls of the lost -{v13} and the believers also!- {v14}, because Paul knew they were of personal concern to Him!

We often look at circumstances and judge His care for us if they are favorable or not. The problem is, this is not true, and if we live like this our lives will be an emotional and spiritual roller-coaster ride of emotions, up one minute, plunging down the next, unstable and unsure and insecure and easily tossed about like a cork floating on a calm sea one minute and a storm tossed ocean the next, drifting and no stability.

Ask Him to help you remember the countless ways He has shown His care for you personally, and as the song goes “count your many blessings name them one by one, count your many blessings see what God has done!”  You will find so many instances coming to your mind as His love and care for you is recalled to you by the Spirit of God!  And be reminded and uplifted by evidences because you are of personal concern to Him!

The Psalmist put it this way,

“How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.“-{Psalm 139:17-18}

The cross of Christ, shows us He cares, and to a world lost and dead in sin, the cross shouts… because he knew they were of personal concern to Him!

The Amplified version says

He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully

God invites us to burden Him with what burdens us.

A T Robertson says cast your cares upon Him because it “is a care to Him”!

God does care and Luke records that He cares so much that

not a hair of your head will perish. (Lk 21:18)

The way “casting all of your cares, anxieties upon Him,” it is  in the “aorist tense,”grammatically is ” an act once and for all, throwing the whole life with its care on Him!”-{Vincent}. When anxieties come into our lives, we look to Him and remind ourselves and Him that we have already given them all to HIM.

And we trust His provision of His Mighty Hand- Power to undertake for us.

” How did Paul say to “cast your cares upon God”? In his epistle to the Philippians, Paul exhorted them to “Worry about nothing; pray about everything.” That is, take it to the Lord in prayer, and leave it there! Don’t pick it up again.

Similarly believers are to cast “all” (the whole in its entirety) of their care upon Him. The emphasis is not on casting each individual anxiety, but on casting the whole of one’s life upon the Lord. Stated another way, Peter does not say to be “casting the big burdens and keeping the little ones!” We all need to come to the place where we realize that God is all sufficient for all problems that may come into our lives. No heartache, difficulty or problem is too difficult for the plan of God. No sin is too great for the plan of God. Beloved, our heavenly Father is willing and able to carry our heaviest (and lightest) burdens but before we can experience God’s sufficiency, we need to acknowledge our insufficiency to live the Christian life. Is there some anxiety you carrying just now, dear child of God? What is your heartache? What grief do you bear today? What disappointment? What hurt feeling? Whatever the burden, go to His throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace by casting it upon Him, for He does not want you to carry that burden.   “-{preceptaustin}

To Give us Love, courage, faith for what we are facing!

 

God’s care  is unleashed as we humble ourselves and trust and depend upon Him.

You Are Of Personal Concern To Him!