PEACE IN CRISIS-CASTING MY CARES UPON THE LORD: PART 6

1 Peter 5:5-6 ESV Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." (6) Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

Okay, you have crisis in your life, and what you have been doing is not working. Insanity, right, to do more of the same thing and expect different results. When I read Matthew chapters 6 and 7 about what our Lord said about worry, being anxious, faithless, and in fear, then it is insane to continue in that mode expecting things to get better, instead of walking in faith in God's Word.

Let God our Father know your requests with an attitude of thanksgiving and not in fear and doubt. Sports are sports, but each sport has its own rules of operation. The same is true with prayer. In sports we cannot play golf with the rules for soccer. We need to know and operate in God's rules of engagement rather than our churches organization mode of operation.

Tell me this: When people are first saved it seems like all their prayers are answered, but after being a Christian for a while answers to prayer seem to wane. Why? We need to walk again in child-like faith. As we get older in the Lord (not mature, just older), we seem to trust our Christian walk on the mental knowledge of the Word we have obtained instead of faith in the author of that Word.

After being a Christian for a while we seem to rely on the faith and belief of others for us instead of our own faith and ability to believe. We are taught in our churches to place our Christian walk and faith in to the hands of the Pastor or an organization. We pay them to do our believing for us. Listen to the messages from our Pastors. We call those who attend church 3 times a week committed Christians and those who only attend Sunday mornings immature. This mindset needs to be re-evaluated because we need to ask those who come 3 times a week who are they committed to, the Lord or the church? This does not mean that everyone who comes 3 times a week is committed to a building or Pastor, nor does it mean that everyone who comes once a week is immature. But it does mean that whatever we do we need to be a people of faith in God and in His Word.

Remember this. There are two great teachers, the Holy Spirit and repetition. When teaching the idea of "proper confession" sometimes we need to say the same thing over and over and over again until we really "get it" in our spirit-man. Sometimes we need to teach or to be taught something 21 times before we get it. It usually takes 21 days of hearing something to chance a habit or a mind set.

Preachers somehow feel like they have to come up with a new message topic every week. The problem is that the people have not gotten the first thing that the preachers have taught internalized so that it has made a change. We need to get truth first within our mind and then deep within our inner man for it to make a change. We have Christians running around chasing the “something new” ministry. Get grounded in the old stuff first and then we will be able to discern the new stuff as to being Biblical or a repackaged New Age teaching.

I love potatoes. I love potato salad, fried potatoes, French fries, baked potatoes and yes I even eat them raw. They are all the same thing as being potatoes, just prepared a little different. The same should be with the Word. Deliver it a little different but it should be the same Word. Proper confession of God's Word always begins with having the right word to confess.

In praying the PRAYER OF CASTING OUR CARES UPON THE LORD we need to be a people with the right confession mixed with faith that God will do what He says that He will do.  If we have a care problem and are distracted away from the Lord by those cares then we should read Matthew 6 and 7 over and over each day until it sinks in that we cannot change one hair on our head with our worry. God has not found us so spiritual and anointed that He has given us a special depensation to worry and fret over our cares. 

Do what it takes to get the Word in you and do not pray in fear, because that is not the prayer of faith.