Assurance of God's Provision
Introduction
When we trust in Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, we become a child of God, one who is both born and adopted into the family of God. As such, we become the recipients of God's personal care as a loving heavenly Father.
John 1:12-13 But to all who have received him-those who believe in his name-he has given the right to become God's children 13 -children not born by human parents or by human desire or a husband's decision, but by God.
Romans 8:15-16 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, "Abba, Father." 16 The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God's children.
Galatians 3:26 For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.
Matthew 7:7-11 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Is there anyone among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you then, although you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12 In everything, treat others as you would want them to treat you, for this fulfills the law and the prophets.
As God is perfect, so His care must also be perfect and complete. The following overview covers some of the key areas of God's personal care for believers in Christ as His beloved children. These are truths that are of special importance to new believers.
The Promise That God Cares
As children of God, all believers become the personal responsibility of an all wise, sovereign, and all powerful God, who, as a heavenly Father, cares in an infinite way for each one of His children. The promise of 1 Peter 5:7 flows out of the exhortation of verse 6 and should be understood and applied in this context. Let's focus on three aspects of this promise: the responsibility, the root, and the reason.
1 Peter 5:6-7 And God will exalt you in due time, if you humble yourselves under his mighty hand 7 by casting all your cares on him because he cares for you.
The Responsibility or Exhortation
The promise of God's care comes out of the preceding verse and the command, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time." This is a call for a willing subjection or submission under God's sovereign authority and omnipotence. In the Greek, the verb is a command and is in the passive voice. Rather than "humble yourselves," it means "be humbled," or "allow yourself to be humbled."
The context in 1 Peter is that of persecution and suffering for the name of Christ during our sojourn on this earth. Suffering is a training tool that God uses, like the blast furnace used by a refiner of fine metals, to purify and develop our faith. This is a humbling process in that it causes us to live more and more in dependence on God. For the refining concept, note:
1 Peter 1:6-9.
6 This brings you great joy, although you may have to suffer for a short time in various trials. 7 Such trials show the proven character of your faith, which is much more valuable than gold-gold that is tested by fire, even though it is passing away-and will bring praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 You have not seen him, but you love him. You do not see him now but you believe in him, and so you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, 9 because you are attaining the goal of your faith-the salvation of your souls.
The pride of man is best seen in his determination to live by his own solutions in independence of God.
As an illustration, when under persecution, man's tendency is to strike back or in some way to take matters into his own hands rather than rest his life under the mighty hand of God. Peter points us to the Lord Jesus as the perfect example of submission and humility in 1 Peter 2:21-25. By the command of verse 6, he is exhorting us to allow God to humble us through the sufferings of this life.
1 Peter 2:21-25 For to this you were called, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you to follow in his steps. 22 He committed no sin nor was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was maligned, he did not answer back; when he suffered, he threatened no retaliation, but committed himself to God who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we may cease from sinning and live for righteousness. By his wounds you were healed. 25 For you were going astray like sheep but now you have turned back to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
The Root or Foundation
The root for true submission under God's might hand is seen in the words, "casting all your anxiety upon Him." We might paraphrase the text, "Be humbled ... by casting all your anxiety upon the Lord." This is more evident from the construction of the Greek text than the English, but this is the meaning. Casting our care on the Lord becomes the foundation and the means for the humbling process that needs to take place.
Furthermore, in the Greek text, "all your anxiety" is really, "the whole of your anxiety or care." The idea is not that we are to cast each of our worries on the Lord, but that we need to come to the place where we have placed our lives, with all its burdens, concerns, and fears, into His loving and capable hands. Rather than take matters into our own hands, rather than try to manipulate and control others and our circumstances, we are to resolve to rest our lives in God's care, purposes, and timing.
When we truly do this, we are able to submit ourselves under God's mighty hand to work out His sovereign purpose. When this is not the case, we will invariably exalt ourselves by trying to manipulate the circumstances of life, especially when under suffering and persecution.
In 1 Samuel, God appointed David to be king in place of Saul because of Saul's disobedience (cf. 1 Sam. 15-16). Saul was a man who, rather than trust his life under the mighty hand of God, consistently sought to take matters into his own hands. He was a manipulator and a controller, and there is a lot of this Saul-like character in each of us. God did not want David to be like a Saul, so He used Saul and his persecution of David to take the Saul-like character out of David.
On two different occasions, Saul threw a spear at David to kill him. What was Saul attempting to do? He was seeking to manipulate and control his own destiny. He was refusing to submit to God's will. And what did David do? Did he pick up the spear and throw it back at Saul? No. Casting the whole of his care on God, he submitted his life under the mighty hand of God. He ducked and slipped away (see 1 Samuel 18:10-20).
The Reason or Explanation
The reason we are to submit and cast our cares on the Lord is seen in the words, "for He cares for you." Literally, the Greek text reads, "because to Him it is a care concerning you." This means you and I are His personal concern. We matter greatly to God. Why worry then if we are God's personal concern? To fail to trust in God's care is in essence an act of self exaltation. It is to act as though we care more than God and can do what God cannot do. Or it is to say, we are afraid of what God will do; we don't want to trust Him with our life. He may take something away that we think we need. If God did the maximum for us in that He spared not His own Son, how much more will He not care for us as His redeemed children?
Romans 8:32 Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things?
Romans 5:8-11 But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, because we have now been declared righteous by his blood, we will be saved through him from God's wrath. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, since we have been reconciled, will we be saved by his life? 11 Not only this, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.
