CASTING YOUR CARES ON HIM!

1st Peter, Casting all your care on Him, for He cares for you…

Good morning world…

My wife has been on me for years to replace the carpet in a portion of our home…It is old, (Like me…Hope she doesn’t want to replace me) anyway, I told her we would, but it would take some time and some more funds…(Funny how things seem to workout)

Well, when we woke up this morning about 7 am, when my wife opened up the bedroom door that leads into the hall way, she spoke up and said, “Bob, we got trouble…” I looked out into the hall way and I saw foot prints on the carpet…At first I thought that someone had broken into the house and had left tracks on the carpet…But…the hot water heater had busted during the night and the footprints on the carpet where hers made by the water under the carpet…What a mess…water everywhere…much damage throughout the house…

It seems bad, but is it? At first, my instinct was, “Oh no, Just what we did not need.” But very quickly we both started laughing…Now she will get her carpet…

I started thinking about all the people in the world that, have gone through, and are going through, severe floods and weather right now…This little flood we have in our house is not too bad when compared to that…but still…

I prayed, for all people everywhere that are having trouble in their lives and there are many…and I prayed, casting all my cares and concerns on the Lord…He cares and wants to help us all get through whatever it is that we are facing at any given moment…

APPLICATION: As you’ve no doubt discovered, becoming a Christian does not make your problems go away…Being a Christian does not mean that your hot water heater will not blow up…Jesus said Himself, “In this life your will have troubles, but take heart, I have overcome the world…”

One of the great things about being a Christian is that it does give us an Advocate to whom you can take every concern…

In the Text we are using this morning, the Christians Peter addressed were facing persecution…They did not know whom they could trust… A friend, a neighbor, or even a family member could betray them, resulting in suffering and even death…But Peter had walked with the risen Christ, and he had personally experienced the love that Jesus had for His followers…He knew that Christ was in control, capable of handling every trial and that He wanted to do so as an expression of His love…

Casting our care is a choice…It means consciously handing over our anxiety to Christ and allowing Him to carry the weight of our problems…At times this is the most difficult part of trusting God! We don’t like turning over the responsibility for our problems…We have been taught that self-reliance is good and praiseworthy…We may even enjoy worrying…Yet if we are to be freed from the burden of our concerns, we must choose to cast them into the strong hands of our Father…

Peter does not distinguish between little cares and big cares…God does not differentiate between problems we should handle on our own and God-sized needs…He asks us to turn them all over to Him…One of our greatest errors is to assume we can deal with something ourselves, only to discover that we really can’t…

God sees us as His frail child, burdened with a load that surpasses our strength…He stands prepared to take our load and to carry it for us…the question is, Will we let Him…?

So now it is time to make a decision, Will we cast our cares on Him or will we carry the burden ourselves…?

I for one will give Him all my cares and concerns…because I know that, through Him comes strength to face every problem and trial…even hot water heaters and bad carpet…

But remember, we must do our part…He cares and will take the burden away in due time, but somebody’s got to get the water up and put in a new hot water heater…

He gives strength to the weary, power to the weak…and love to the broken hearted…

God bless…and be good…

Rev. Robert N. Graves, Sr. Fisherman for Christ