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In a church where I was the pastor
back in the 1960’s, there was a woman whose husband was lost. In every
Wednesday evening prayer service she would stand and with a tearful plea ask
prayer for the salvation of her beloved husband. She finally left him. He
called me and made a commitment to the Lord assuring me he was very serious
and would serve the Lord even if his wife and children did not return.
In time she and the children did
return, but he was a changed man. He attended every service. Even on yard
workdays at the church, he would bring his mower and edger. He worked
harder and served more faithfully than anyone else. He drove the church bus
each Sunday and brought children in the neighborhood to Sunday School.
One day his wife brought him into my
office protesting that they were doing too much. She felt he was going
over-board, reading his Bible all the time, and always going to church every
time there was a service. She wanted him to be saved, but not to go so far
in service to the Lord. She had more or less lost her identity. She was
hardly noticed any more with a saved husband serving the Lord like he did.
Eventually she got him to leave the church and the last I heard they were
still not going anywhere to worship the Lord.
This woman had a great burden: a
lost husband. She was filled with care, crying out for people to pray for
her to endure and for her husband to be saved; but once he changed she had
lost an important part of who she was. She had worshiped the subtle idol of
her “burden and care” that her husband be saved. She then turned
from one complaint to the opposite complaint: he has gone too far.
Have
you been carrying the same burden and care for a long time? When
people think of you, do they immediately associate you with your problem?
Do you make your burden and care the topic of almost every conversation?
Has your burden and cares become your identity? These are indications that
something is amiss. There may be a subtle idol in your life.
We are told in Psalm 55:22, “Cast
thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer
the righteous to be moved. {burden: or, gift}” Note that
the marginal notation says the burden is a “gift” from God. Remember
Isaiah 45:7, “I form the light and create
darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all
these things.” When you have a burden, care or trouble in
your life, recognize from whence it comes. It is the Lord that has given
you a “gift.”
When the Lord gave the three Hebrew
children the burden and care of the fiery furnace, they gave it back to
Him. When the Lord gave Daniel the den of lions, Daniel gave it back to
Him. The Scripture clearly tells us to “cast
our burden upon the Lord.” The burden He gives us we offer to
Him and He gets the glory for our deliverance in it, if not from
it and maybe in time both.
Our
identity then remains “in Him” and not in relationship with our burden or
care. Psalm 50:15 tells us how this arrangement works: “Call
upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify
me.” He sends the trouble. We give it back to Him. He delivers
us. We glorify His Name. Isn’t that a great deal? It shows that without
the furnace, the den of lions, the giant Goliath, the flooded Red Sea, the
barren womb, the reduction of military might, etc. God would not be
glorified in our lives. It is through suffering that we see His glory. That
is the means of bringing us into His glory “if
so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”
No, our identity is not our burdens
and cares in this life. We are admonished to live in such a way that we
have “cast” our burden upon the
Lord. A. T. Robertson says the verb “cast”
means to throw upon. The word is only used twice in the New Testament, in
1Peter 5:7 and Luke 19:35. In one verse it is to cast your burden on
the Lord and the other verse they cast the blanket on the donkey for
Jesus to ride.
Now that tells us that you don’t
just throw the burden aside as if it doesn’t exist. Some “positive
thinkers” would tell you to do that. No, we purposefully cast our burden “upon
the Lord.” We give that which He gave us back to Him. That is
relationship.
This is illustrated in Psalm 116:12,
“What shall I render unto the LORD for all
his benefits toward me?” What could you give to God? It is
blasphemy to think that we could repay Him for His goodness and grace to
us. But, what can we give Him? Verse 13 gives the proper answer, “I
will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD.”
In other words, I will give my burden to Him. I will lift my empty cup and
say, “Fill it up with your grace, Lord.” I need more grace like fresh manna
every day.” This honors Him for He loves to give.
Do away with the pride of giving Him
something. Live in the humility of asking for grace. It doesn’t upset Him,
“But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he
saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.”
In fact, we live expectantly in the hope of grace for the future: “God
is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all
sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.” That
is the bargain of our salvation: we ask and He gives. We give Him our
burden and he gives us deliverance. “For our
light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
Don’t hang on to your burden. You
have a spouse who doesn’t know the Lord, or you have financial woes, or you
are dealing with sickness, or whatever your burden is, do what the Scripture
tells you to do: “Commit thy way unto the
LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. {Commit...:
Heb. Roll thy way upon}” Note the word “commit”
means “to roll”. Go ahead and roll that entire big, heavy burden on
Him.
What
is our motivation? In our heart and through the Word we know the
reason we are free to do this is “for he
careth for you.” If “the very
hairs of your head are all numbered” then you know he cares about
your burden. After all, He gave it to you to give to Him. A. T. Robertson
says, “He careth” means “It is
a care to Him.”
Matthew Henry
says of this verse,
"Throw your cares, which are so cutting and distracting, which wound your
souls and pierce your hearts, upon the wise and gracious providence of God;
trust in him with a firm composed mind,
for he careth for you.
He is willing to release you of your care, and take the care of you upon
himself. He will either avert what you fear, or support you under it. He
will order all events to you so as shall convince you of his paternal love
and tenderness towards you; and all shall be so ordered that no hurt, but
good, shall come unto you,’’ See Mt. 6:25; Ps. 84:11; Rom. 8:28.
Henry goes on to say, “The
cares even of good people are very burdensome, and too often very sinful;
when they arise from unbelief and diffidence, when they torture and distract
the mind, unfit us for the duties of our place and hinder our delightful
service of God, they are very criminal.” In other words, there is a risk if
you do not “roll your care on Him” that your burden will become an idol.
You will begin to fear it instead of the Lord. What ever you fear you
worship. “The
fear of the Lord is the greater part of wisdom.”
Henry
concludes: “The best remedy against immoderate care is to
cast our care upon God,
and resign every event to the wise and gracious determination. A firm belief
of the rectitude of the divine will and counsels calms the spirit of man.
We ceased, -- saying, ‘The will of
the Lord be done’,
Acts 21:14.”
What
do you do when you have cast your care upon Him and it seems to come back to
you? Recognize that it has been cast
on Him “once and for all”
(according to Marvin Vincent Greek Studies). Each care is cast once and for
all upon the Lord and each time you think it has returned you step into your
faith of what you have done in the past and acknowledge that it has been
given to Him. Have nothing more to do with carrying that burden again. In
the Amplified Bible it reads like this: “Casting
the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your
concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you
affectionately and cares about you watchfully.”
The best way to ease
yourself is to lay your load upon God; He will take it up and also carry
you. There are many who would be willing to go on if another would but carry
his burden for him; but if you throw your burden upon God he will not only
carry that, but will also carry you. He doesn’t care how much weight a
Christian lays on His back; a true Christian may ease himself and best
please his God at once. God delights not to see tears in your eyes, or
paleness in your countenance; your groans and sighs make no music in His
ears. He had rather you free yourself of your burden by casting it upon Him
that He might rejoice in your joy and comfort.
Now, true confidence in
God, and resting upon God, will both free you of your burden becoming an
idol and also bring in the strength of God to sustain and bear you up from
falling. Will you own God as your strength, and draw strength from God to
your soul? Rest upon God. Roll yourself upon Him.
“Dear
children, keep yourselves from idols.”
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