In this brief verse, Peter gives profound instruction to the disciple of Jesus Christ for dealing with anxiety in their life. This is the second in a series of blogs exploring anxiety and then applying Peter’s instruction to every believer’s everyday life.

“casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”

As mentioned in our previous study, anxiety is “the ongoing fear and emotional distress and unease felt in response to some perceived threat, whether real or imaginary.” When wrestling with anxiety, the disciple of Jesus is not walking by faith but is instead responding to a perceived threat as an unbeliever would respond. By contrast, the word of God commands the disciple to be “casting your anxiety on the Lord, because He cares for you.” In this study I want to consider how anxiety in the life of the believer robs God of His deserved glory and then follow that up by looking at practical ways of “casting our anxiety on Him.”

In the Scriptures, our God declares Himself to be the only God and the only One deserving of glory and honor and praise. He is the Creator-God and the heavens declare His glory and proclaim His righteousness. He is sovereign over all things, so He acts and no one can reverse it. He does whatever He pleases. He has no rivals and He experiences no threats. If He is for us, no one can be against us. There is nothing too difficult for Him and there is nothing impossible for Him. This is our God and this is the One who has called us to salvation and who has promised that He will be our Defender and our Shield and our Strong Tower and our Fortress. He bids us to dwell in the shelter of the Most High and to abide in the shadow of the Almighty. Our God is mighty to save and He speaks with derision and contempt at all so-called gods who attempt to contend with Him. He rules and He reigns.

This is the Lord God in whom the disciple has believed and whom the disciple trusts and loves. Once an orphan and a stranger in the earth, the disciple has now been adopted as a child of the King of kings and has been seated in the heavenly places. It is, therefore, easy to see that when a disciple of the Lord of heaven perceives a threat here on earth and responds with fear and anxiety, the disciple is robbing God of His glory. The Lord has declared and demonstrated His power, but our anxiety says that our God is not in control, our God is not powerful enough to help us and our God does not really care for us. By our anxiety, the disciple of Jesus is not only explicitly disobeying the commands of Scripture to not fear, but he/she is also calling God’s word and God’s character and God’s promises into question. My anxiety essentially “gives occasion for the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme (2 Samuel 12:14).” By my anxiety I am robbing my Lord of His deserved glory. Instead of glorifying the Lord with all my life, I am doing exactly the opposite. I do not say this to make you feel guilty, but rather to convict you and me of the sinfulness of anxiety and to use that conviction as a motivator to vanquish the demon of anxiety once and for all.

Now having made the determination that anxiety will be forever conquered in our lives, we will take a look at practical ways to be “casting our anxiety on Him.” That will be the subject of the next study.

SDG                            rmb                            3/15/2017