How do I turn my worries and cares over to God?

For years, God would speak the same message to me: “Cast your cares upon Me.”

My lack of trust in God surfaced as the real underlying issue. I didn’t know if He would come through for me, if He would care enough to perform on my behalf in every situation.

I don’t know where your lack of trust in God comes from, but mine came from a lack of trust in my Dad, the earthly man whose DNA flows in my body. The one who raised me with my Mom for most of my childhood.

He is a functioning bi-polar. We put this label on anyone who has mood swings, but my Dad has the highs and lows that come from being a clinical manic depressive. Living with those types of mood swings can make any person lose trust in human beings.

I transferred the relationship I had with my Dad over to God, my Heavenly Father.

I didn’t trust God to do me good. I saw those movies and television shows where God struck people down who made mistakes.

However I re-shifted my thinking about God. I learned that God loves me. He wants to do me good. He has good plans in store for me. He wants to bless and prosper me. He wants to heal, save and deliver me.

He loved me so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for me. Jesus paid the price for my sins–past, present and future. He did that for you too. He loves you as much as He loves His Son, Jesus. Think about that for a moment.

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? – Romans 8:32

God loves me, and He loves you too. He didn’t design you to carry stress. He didn’t design you to carry burdens. He wants to make an exchange. Your burdens for His promises. That is a wonderful deal. He takes your worries, fears, anxieties, sickness and disease. In exchange, you receive peace, joy, health and wholeness and yes, even prosperity. It is a more-than-enough deal by a more-than-enough God.

If you feel overwhelmed by the thought of giving your cares to God, if you feel that you never could fully relinquish them to God, I know exactly how you feel. I have felt that by keeping my worries, I was doing my part. If I stopped worrying, I was sure something bad would happen. I made myself out to be the center of the universe. I made myself out to have control of every thing around me, and I don’t.

I had to learn, and am still learning, to hand my cares over to the One who is in control–God. Only He can handle what worries me. Only He can deal with all the problems and situations of an individual’s life.

It isn’t easy to relinquish the things that you have been carrying close to your heart all these years over to God. It isn’t easy to let someone else handle your problems, even if it is the God of the Universe.

Casting your cares on God requires absolute trust in Him to take care of what concerns you. As humans, we like to be in control. We enjoy being, in our minds, the center of the Universe. Being out of control scares us.

It has been a struggle to learn to cast my cares. I took a basket and filled it with all my cares, which I committed to God. I’ve also written them down in a computer file or in a journal. I also tried tacking them up on a big make-shift paper cross on a bulletin board.

One of the more effective ways that I have tried, though, is to commit them to God. Then when the devil torments me to say, “I’ve already given that to God. According to [insert Scripture], I am [insert whatever you need the outcome to be].

For example: “I’ve already given that to God. According to I Peter 2:24, by Jesus’ stripes, I am healed. Therefore I am healed.”

I have found that when you give your care over to God, then start standing on a word from the Bible, that you can practically cast your cares.

God’s Word is the final authority in our lives. It tells us everything that we can have through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.

As children of God, we can stand on the Word of God concerning anything in our lives. God’s Word is the Ultimate Truth. Everything else is facts, and facts can be, and will be changed, to the Word of God.

For instance: let’s say that you are sick. You go to the doctor, and he gives you a dismal report. You can either believe that doctor or the Word of Almighty God that says you are already healed because Jesus took stripes on His back for your healing.

All facts must eventually line up with the Ultimate Truth–the Bible, if we stand on the Word.

Every time satan comes at you and says, “God won’t heal you,” you can counter him with the Word of God. You can say, “No, satan, I choose to believe the Word of God that says by Jesus’ stripes, I am healed.”

You must do that every time satan comes to you with that lie. The more you do it, the better you will become at it.

When we rely on the Word of God, we are resting in God and His promises.

He never called us to carry all the cares and worries of this life. He told us to give them to Him. Until we do, we will be burdened down, dejected, disappointed and dispirited. We are taking control of too much. Cast your cares of the Lord.

Find a Scripture to stand on and hit the devil with it whenever he comes against you. That Scripture is your title deed, your claim ticket to your inheritance, through Christ Jesus.

#Christian #bible #jesus #christ #jesuschrist #christianity #holyspirit #faith #jesuslovesyou

How do I know which of God’s promises are for me?

All of them. Let me explain why: sin entered the world through Adam and Eve’s disobedience at the beginning of time (Genesis 3). From that time forth, everyone born into this world is a sinner.

Now God could have left it that way. He could have just sent everyone to hell when they died, but that is not God’s style.

He sent His Son to Earth to be born of a virgin, to grow up, go to the Cross and die for us (John 3:16).

The wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23). When God decided to redeem us. He had to find a sinless, blameless sacrifice. Someone He could judged for all our sins. Only His Son Jesus qualified. Jesus went to the Cross. The soldiers beat Him and bruised Him until His skin hung off the whip.

God placed all our sins–past, present and future on Jesus. Jesus died for us, and His sacrifice put us in right-standing with God (II Corinthians 5:21).

When we accept what Jesus did, our sins are covered. We are redeemed. God adopted us into His family. We have the same rights and privileges as His Son Jesus, who God raised from the dead.

When one is adopted in the natural, he is entitled to everything that the parents’ natural children are. Why would it be any different with our Heavenly Father?

When Jesus died, God adopted us, and now we are entitled to everything that Christ is entitled to. The Bible says we are as Christ is in this Earth (I John 4:17).

Is Christ sick? No. Is Christ broke? No. Is Christ suffering? No.

We are to be as Christ is in this Earth because when Jesus died, we did too. When He came back from the dead so did we (Romans 6:4). He is in us (Colossians 1:27), and we are in Him.

Therefore we are entitled to all the promises in the Bible through God’s grace. We don’t deserve them. We didn’t earn them. It is grace. The undeserved, unmerited, free gift of God.

Most people don’t believe in radical grace. They fear it will cause people to sin. However people who truly understand what Christ did for us don’t want to sin.

All of the promises of God are ours. God loves us so much that He forgave all our sins, healed all our diseases, redeemed our lives from destruction and satisfied our mouths with good things (Psalms 103:1-5), and that’s only the Old Testament benefits!

God doesn’t expect us to provide everything for ourselves. Instead He expects to be Jehovah Jireh in our lives. Our provider.

He expects us to let Him carry our burdens of worry, shame and guilt. He expects us to entrust Him with everything that is upsetting us. We are not designed to carry everything on our own. God designed us so that He could teach us and guide us along the path He wants us to take.

We are His children, and we can come to Him at any time. We can tell Him our problems. In order to hear Him speak, though, we must be versed in the Bible.Otherwise we will not be able to distinguish God’s voice from those of the devil or our own minds.

As I mentioned before, we are God’s children and as such, we are entitled to everything that Christ is entitled to.

We are seated in heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 2:6). From that position, we already have our healing, our financial blessings, our needs met.

It is down here on this earth that we are in need. By taking hold of the promises of God, we can transfer those blessings from the spiritual to the physical realm.

We must understand that we have the right to claim the promises. We need to settle them in our hearts and minds before we attempt to take hold of the promises.

We have to be in a no-doubt zone. No doubt can entered into our hearts and minds when it comes to obtaining the promises of God. None. Doubt will kill a promise of God quicker than anything else.

So how do we obtain the promises of God?

First of all, we must go to the Word. It is important that we read the Bible. All the promises that God has made available to us are listed in it.

When a person dies, he leaves a will. If we are listed in that will, we will not know it if the lawyer cannot find us or if we don’t look into it. If we are listed in Great Aunt Ida’s will, and she leaves us $92,000,000, we would want to know, right?

God is not with us here on Earth in a physical form. Therefore He left His will, the Bible.

In His will, He left us wealth, prosperity, healing, deliverance and much more. Unless we open it up and start reading, though, we will not know what God wants us to have.

Instead we have the preacher’s word on it. Our Aunt Maddy’s word on it. But what did God actually say? We need to read the Bible and find out for ourselves.

We have to find promises that pertain to our situation. We wouldn’t use healing Scriptures for a financial problem or finance Scriptures for a thinking problem.

We must find Scriptures that pertain to what we are experiencing or that pertain to our area of need. A concordance will be helpful in this task.

Write those Scriptures down. Three to five Scriptures will be sufficient, then read over the list every day. Read the Scriptures aloud, personalizing them. For example: for God so loved the world becomes for God so loved me.

Do this day after day, week after week. Pray them to the Lord.

Keep doing this especially when it feels like nothing is happening. When God is silent, it means He is working the most. As an act of faith, praise God before He comes through.

Work these Scriptures until you see those promises manifest!

#Christ #God #Jesus #JesusSaves #Bible

Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. – 1 John 4:17 (KJV).

As Christ is so are we in this world. Let that sink in for a moment.

As Christ is so are we in this world. How can that be? He is God, and we–mere human beings.

When Jesus went to the Cross, He did a lot more than just pay for our sins.

At the Cross, the Great Exchange happened. God entered into Covenant with man once more.

God didn’t leave it up to us to fulfill our part of the covenant because He knew that we could never live a perfect, sinless life.

He send Jesus to Earth to live a perfect, sinless life, thus fulfilling our part.

When David made a covenant with Jonathan in 1 Samuel 18, we see them exchanging coats, a symbol that everything that was David’s was now Jonathan’s and vice versa.

This is what took place at the Cross, Jesus exchanged all of what He had for all of what we had.

He took our sins, our selfishness, our ungodly thoughts–all of our bad. In exchange, He gave us all of His good–His righteousness (II Corinthians 5:21), His grace, His mercy, His healing (1 Peter 2:24), His protection (Psalm 91), His abundance (John 10:10) and His blessings.

Think about that for a moment.

What if we believed that? What if we believed that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus? What if we believed that we are healed? What is we believed that God wants to prosper us and not to harm us (Jeremiah 29:11)? What if we were to believe what the Word actually says and not the experiences and the teaching of others?

What if we just simply believed?

I believe if we did that, if we just believed, our lives would change dramatically, that we might actually live the abundant life God promised in John 10:10.

I challenge you to simply believe what the Word says today. Start with believing you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21). Meditate on it. Mutter that Scripture over and over to yourself throughout the day.

Put in the comments below, a time when you believed the promises of God, and you saw a miracle happen in your circumstances.

A few weeks ago, our church sent its members around door-to-door in our neighborhood, putting fliers on everyone’s door.

A thought struck me: wouldn’t it have been more effective if the church members would have knocked on the door and asked, “How can I help you today,” “Is there something I help you with,” “Can I minister to you in some way” or the like.

Have you ever seen the show, 7th Heaven? The minister does recruit people to go to his church. He doesn’t say, like most churches today, “I can’t help you unless you go to my church.”

He helps anyone who is in trouble, usually going beyond the call of duty–running errands for an elderly woman, inviting people to dinner who are hungry, taking people into his own house.

And what happens? His church is filled on Sunday. Why? Because he helped the people in his community–black, white, male, female, adult, child, Catholic, Jewish, Atheist.

So what can we take away from this? Being a Christian is more than carrying a Bible, quoting Scriptures and passing out tracts. Being a Born-again Christian is a lifestyle, a way of life.

If you want to be an effective witness for Christ, start by helping in your own community. Find a need and fill it.

Does your neighbor need a baby-sitter because she is a single mother who works nights? Does your local parks and recreation need a coach? Maybe the guy down the street needs a little encouragement because he lost his job.

It is not as much what we say that people pay attention to as what we do.

Throughout Jesus’ life, He applied this concept. Never did you hear Jesus ask a person, “Do you go to my synagogue” before He helped a person.

He helped a woman at a well. He helped people who came up to Him on the street. He helped people on the way to the synagogue. He helped people in the synagogue.

Whenever people were in need and believed, Jesus helped them.

He was so well known that when the lady with the issue of blood touched His garment, she had to press through a crowd of people.

In the same way, we need to be keeping our ears and eyes open to people we can help in our own community.

A lot of people have grand visions of going to Africa or Mexico to help people. And there is nothing wrong with that.

However, before you buy an one-way ticket to parts unknown, practice by helping the people around you.

There are hurting people around you. People who need encouragement. People who need God. People who need help with their kids, their lives, their jobs.

And what if you are the only time in their whole lives that someone did something nice for them? What if you are the only time they ever see the love of Christ? What if they end up going to hell because you missed an opportunity to help them, to share God with them?

Ask God today who in your community, who around you, that you can help. You might just be the answer to someone’s prayers.

Originally printed in 2004

#Christian #hope #God #Christ #Bible

God has a purpose for your life. Not many people understand that. Not maybe people comprehend that you were put on this Earth randomly. It wasn’t because your parents got together and created you. No, God picked you out, chose you from the beginning of the world to complete a specific task He had in mind for you. But the task wasn’t tailor made for you. No, you were tailor-made for the task. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, God fashioned you with just the right combination of smarts, talents, abilities and personality to accomplish that task. To Him, you failing to fulfill that task, your destiny, wasn’t an option.

But we, His chosen people, have made it an option. No longer is it “I will fulfill my destiny” and “God, use me for your purpose.” Instead we say “I hope and pray I fulfill my destiny. I hope I am in God’s will” or “If I complete my purpose…”

If failure is not an option with God, it shouldn’t be with us either. We are His children, created in His image. We are suppose to be imitators of our Heavenly Father. And failure is not an option to Him, so we need to banish it from our vocabulary as well.

What does the word fail mean? Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Fifth Edition, describes fail as “to be wanting; to fall short; to come to an end; to err; to be mistaken.”

And what is a failure? Someone who fails.

It was never God’s intention for us to be failures.

But somehow we see ourselves that way. In fact, we think that God is up in Heaven waiting for us to screw up, so that He can whack over the head or strike us with lightening. We see God as wanting to trip us up, wanting us to fail, but God isn’t like that.

God is on our side. On our side.

What does it mean when we say that someone is on our side? If you are gang member, or a cop, it means that your partners are ready to stand up for you, defend you and back you in a fight.

And that’s the way God is. Because we are His children–if we have accepted Jesus into our hearts–God is ready to stand up for us, defend us and back us up in a fight.

Imagine that! God is ready to back us up! He is ready to help us in time of trouble. He is ready to give us answers when we aren’t in trouble but are simply confused.

God loves us. No matter what we say. No matter what we do. There is nothing we can do that will get God to stop loving us. Nothing!

He doesn’t look at your behavior chart and say, “Oh, well, you haven’t been good, so I can’t help you.”

No, because you have accepted what Jesus did on the cross, you are in right standing with God. Your salvation and your right standing has nothing to do with your behavior and everything to do with Jesus’ shed blood on the cross, which covered all your sins–past, present and future.
God loves you. If He doesn’t see you as a failure, either should we.

So how do we change our perspective of ourselves? The first thing is to get into God’s Word and see what God says about you. What does He think about you? How does He feel about you? What can you do through Christ? What can you have through Christ?

Then you will learn that God loves you unconditionally, that you are the apple of His eye, that He sent His only begotten Son to die in your place, that He bottles your tears. You will discover the benefits of being a child of God–total life prosperity (healing for your mind, soul, body and finances). Every thing you need, God has provided for you.

Once you realize you are more than a conqueror, that you are the head and not the tail, above and not beneath, that God is on your side, you need to start agreeing with God’s Word by speaking those words over your life.

The more you do that, the more you will be changing the image on the inside of you. You are like Michelangelo when he chiseled away at that block of marble, waiting for David to emerge. You are chiseling away at that bad self image, that failure perception, until the real you, the you that God created, appears.

It takes a lot of time, patience and effort to change your internal image to reflect the way God see you. But all that time, patience and effort will pale in comparison to what you gain. A healthy, godly image of who you are and who God created you to be. You are more than a conqueror. You are a child of Almighty God.

#God #childofGod #purpose #notafailure

#Christian #GodsPromises #Peace #Mind

#blessings #ChangeYourCirumstances #FocusOnGod

Who do you run to? When you are in trouble, when you are down and depressed, when you do not see a way out of your current circumstances?  Do you turn to your spouse?  Best friend?  Neighbor?  Anyone who will listen?  Or do you turn to God?

Do you think that He is going to scold you?  That He is going look at His record of whether you have been good or bad and decide whether you deserve His help?

God is not Santa Claus.  God does not keep records of your wrongdoing.   That was settled once and for all at the Cross where Jesus took the wrath and punishment for all sin–past, present and future   (Romans 6:10).   All sin.  Period.

But God doesn’t help us if we made the mess ourselves.  Psalm 107:20 says God delivers us from our destructions.  Our destructions.   We created them,  yes, but God will still help us if we ask.

But God helps those that help themselves.   This isn’t in the Bible.   It  goes against what the Bible teaches.   The Bible shows us that Jesus helped all that came to Him.

Yes, they had to make an effort to come to Him, to give Him what they had–their broken bodies,  their fish and loaves,  their boat–and He healed what was wrong in their lives.

We have to come to Him.  We have to give Him what we have and believe Him to heal it.  No matter if it is our health, our finances, our relationships.  It doesn’t matter.  When the lady with the issue of blood came to Him, she needed healing (Mark 5:25-34) .  He gave her healing.  When the disciples didn’t catch anything all night, they needed fish (Luke 5:5-6).  He gave them fish.  When the boy gave Him the loaves and fish, they needed more food.  He multiplied it and fed everyone (Matthew 14:13-21).

When we come to Jesus, when we ask for His help, He will give us what we need (Philippians 4:19).  We just have to believe that we He said, He will do.  Period.  End of story.

#healing #provision #GodsHelp #RunToGod

God has given us gifts and talents. Only most of us are not using them.

Remember the story in Matthew 25: 14-30 about the talents? A master who intended to travel called together his servants. He gave one man five talents, another two and the last one he gave one.

Verse 15 tells us that he gave each according to his ability. He had great faith in the one who gained five talents and little faith in the man he gave one.

When the master returned, he again gathered the servants together. This time to give account for what they did with what he gave them.

The man with five talents earned five more. The one with two talents gained two more, but the man with one talent buried it.

The man with the five talents and the one with the two pleased the master, but the one who buried the talent angered the master.

Why? The men with the five and two talents put their talents to work for them. The servant who buried it did not.

Even though a talent was a form of money in the Bible, I cannot help but think that this parable is more than about our money. I believe it is about the resources that God has given us.

II Peter 1:3 (NKJV) says, “as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,”

What if the solution to our every problem has already been given to us?

What if we just have not realized that our talents and gifts and what we like to do will not only open doors for us to minister to the lost but would also open doors for financial blessings?

What if the solution to every problem could be found in our own backyard? In that dusty old Bible that rests on our nightstand? What if there were gifts that God has given to us that we have not tapped into yet?

What if it is true that God has already given us everything that pertains to life and godliness? What if it is true that when Jesus died, He already gave us righteousness, His righteousness (II Corinthians 5:21), healing of mind and body (I Peter 2:24) and took the curse for us (Galatians 3:13)?

What is preventing us from believing that? We are looking at the world and not at the Word. We are burying our talents, gifts, resources that God has already given us for what we see going on around us.

What we see is temporal (II Corinthians 4:18). God’s Word is forever (Matthew 24:35). God’s Word is truth (II Timothy 3:16).

Are you going to believe God, or are you going to believe what you see? Life will be for you as you believe (Mark 9:23).

#believe #God #seenorunseen #talents #gifts

may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, – Ephesians 3:18-20 (NIV).

Most of us that have lived the Christian life for any length of time have heard Ephesians 3:20. We quote it, pray it and hope that God doing exceedingly, abundantly above all we ask or think will happen in our lives.

What is that power that works within us? For that, we have to go to the previous two verses. What is being discussed? Love. God’s love, to be exact. We go to church and listen to sermons about how we need to love God more, how we need to serve God more, how we have to be constantly on point for God to love us. Only God is not concerned with our love for Him. God is more concerned that we know how much He loved us. How much He still loves us.

That is what Ephesians 3:18-19 is talking about. It is discussing how much God loves us. I submit to you that knowing God loves us is the power that works within us.

Do we truly get how much God loves us? He sent His Son to become sin for us (II Corinthians 5:21), to die for our sins, to be judged once and for all for all our sins–past, present and future (I Peter 3:18). Do we truly understand the depth of God’s love for us that although He gave us free will, although He knew that we would choose to sin, He still made a way of escape to allow us to be reconciled back to Himself? When we get this, when we are rooted and grounded in knowing and believing that God loves us, that is when God is able to do abundantly above all we can ask or think.

Why? Because then we know that God is not out to harm us but to prosper us (Jeremiah 29:11). Then we are able to surrender to His plans for our lives. When we put our lives, our plans, our thoughts, our dreams, in God’s Hands, He will return them to us a million times better than we gave them to Him.

Begin every day by telling yourself how much God loves you. In fact, under your breath throughout your day, while you are driving, in the restroom, at lunch, before you go to bed, say under your breath, “God loves me.” Keep doing this until you believe it.

Take scriptures on God’s love for you and speak them under your breath over and over again until you believe them. Then surrender everything to God and watch Him do the miraculous in your life.

#Miraculous #AbundantlyAbove  #GodsLove