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'Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you'.
1Peter 5:7
The dear believers Peter is writing to here loved the Lord Jesus and were suffering many things because of their association with Him. Their cares were many and the Apostle Peter encourages them to cast them all upon the Lord. What a release and relief is experienced when a heavy burden is laid down and another takes up the burden for us. The hymn writer, no doubt from personal experience records, 'O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.' When something is cast it is necessary to let go of it. If we hold on to it then naturally it remains with us. The Word of God reveals many reasons why we should cast all our care upon the Lord. Here are just three of them.
HE IS QUALIFIED
He is our maker and no one knows us better than the Lord. The Psalmist David was conscious of this wonderful truth: Ps 139: 1-3 O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and know me. 2 Thou Knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off. 3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. The Lord knows us intimately and individually. What may be a light burden for one may be too heavy for another to bear but the Lord knows us and all our cares. He understandest our thought afar off. Here is something that only the maker could know. Very often care and anxiety is built up in the mind where no one but the Lord can see. No one else is aware of the intense private grief and sorrow that is hidden there. The Lord is acquainted with 'all our ways' not just some of them. He knows the whole story. He sees from the beginning to the end for He is the Alpha and Omega. The Lord is not forgetful of our restraints in the flesh, Psalm 103:14 For He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust. Others may offer sympathy and advice but the Lord knows and can supply what we lack and stand in need of, Matthew 6:32 Your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. When the apostles came to the Lord, after the death of John the Baptist, they told Him all things, both what they had done, and taught. The Lord's response is most interesting and gracious for He knew what they needed, And He said unto them, "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while:" for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat Mark 6:31. He is supremely qualified to carry our every care for He is our maker and knows what troubles our hearts.
HE IS ABLE
We can cast all our care upon Him because He is able to carry it. In grace He removed from our shoulders the weight of our sin that would have separated us from God for all eternity. The prophet Isaiah prophesying concerning Israel's Messiah , 'surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows' Isaiah 53:4. He is the only one able to bear the burden for He is 'upholding all things by the word of His power' Hebrews 1:3. The Lord Himself is the tender shepherd of Luke 15 who leaves the ninety and nine in the shelter of the fold and goes out in search of the one that is lost until He finds it. His first action is to securely lay the sheep upon His shoulders, never to be lost again, and carry it safely home. How strange it is that we can believe, without hesitation, that 'His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree' 1 Peter 2:24. Yet many of us doubt His ability to take our daily cares upon Him, For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin Hebrews 4:15.
HE CARETH FOR YOU
The precious verse itself gives us the most wonderful reason why we should cast all our care upon Him it is because 'He careth for you,' this is the most amazing thing of all. That we creatures of the dust who were enemies in our mind by wicked works and have been, at infinite cost, reconciled to God by the death of His dear Son, that He should ever have cared for us. We never cared for Him. If He had never cared for us there would have been no angelic proclamation to the shepherds on the hillside of Judea 'For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.' Luke 2:11. If He had never cared for us there would have been no need for that agonizing prayer in the garden of Gethsemane " O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt" Matthew 26:39. If He had never cared for us they could never have taken Him in the garden "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" Matthew 26:53. If He had never cared for us no hand of man could ever have smote His blessed face, no spittle run down His divine cheek and no mock crown of thorns pierce His royal brow and no nails hold Him to the tree.
Tom Rice
