God cares about whatever makes you anxious

I Peter 5:7 (NASB)

“……..casting all your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you. 

During a Bible study class I was leading one Sunday, early in my teaching ministry, someone stated, “God does not care for you so long as you love Him”!  I didn’t quite understand the statement, but it threw me off balance and I wasn’t sure how to respond.  Only later did I first come across this verse from I Peter that would have been a great retort to this convoluted/confusing statement had I know it at that time. 

God does care about His children, believers in Him and His Son, Jesus Christ.  As a child of God, you are privileged to throw the whole weight (how Phillips translation describes this) of whatever is making you anxious upon the Lord through your prayers and be absolutely confident that He cares and will help you. 

Peter’s letter contains 11 verses that are direct quotes from the Old Testament.  While this verse is not a direct quote, it certainly closely relates to Psalm 55:22:  “Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall”.

Faith is always at the foundation, the crossroad, the singular step in anything that involves your relationship with the Lord.  You cannot do more than simply trust and believe that you, ________________ (write down your name) are a personal concern of the Lord.  You must (not should) trust that God cares for you.  You must believe that He will sustain you through whatever is worrying you right now.  And, here’s the ultimate in what you must believe in-----He will NEVER let you fall. 

The key characteristic of the one whom God will never allow to fall is righteousness, simply meaning being right with God.  In I Peter 5:5, the emphatic word is humility; it is the humble believer about whom God is concerned and will never allow to fall.  So, to stand on these promises, you must have faith that results from being a righteous, humble person, a life controlled by the Spirit of Christ, not your own selfish ego. 

J. Sidlow Baxter pointed out that there are two kinds of care in I Peter 5:7.  “There is anxious care from the words ‘casting all your anxiety’ and there is affectionate care in the words ‘He cares for you’.  Over against all our own anxious care is our Savior’s never-failing affectionate care.”

What are you anxious about right now?  Do you trust the Lord enough that not only are you willing to pour out your heart to Him, but also following your pleas and prayers, you can live your life without feeling anxious?  Of course, this is so much easier said than done.  It takes consistency to keep praying every time the anxiety re-surfaces.  It takes resolve to fight the human impulses to worry rather than to pray.  And it takes great faith to believe and trust that God is true to His promises to remove your anxieties and help you deal with and overcome whatever is causing them.