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Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)

Does God care for us? Absolutely. Does He want us to cast our cares upon Him? Yes. But the sentence begins with a command to “humble yourselves”.

Casting our cares upon God is preceded by a surrender of all that we are to His will for our lives. Under His mighty hand we are purified from sin and shaped into the image of Christ. The pain we experience in the midst of our cares works to our good under His mighty hand. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory… (2 Corinthians 4:17)

It is for a moment. Surrendered to His purpose, casting our cares upon Him, we are confident that He will with His mighty hand lift us out of our cares at precisely the right moment. We trust His purpose. We trust His plan. We thus surrender to His will. And we know He cares for us.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Ever been between a rock and a hard place? Hemmed in? Under pressure?

Tribulation and affliction are a part of the human experience. We are sinners and sin has affected us and everyone and everything around us. The result? This isn’t an easy place to live, sometimes from our own doing, sometimes from the doing of others and sometimes simply because we live in bodies of clay. But in our tribulations there is always Divine purpose.

For example, it is in the midst of affliction that we experience the mercies and comfort of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There we receive the compassion and encouragement of our heavenly Father. We learn what it means to experience the care of God when we are tempted to think no one cares.

God’s gracious purpose in our lives is to comfort us, but also that we, having experienced such kindness, will ourselves be so gracious to others experiencing tribulation. Indeed the full experience of God’s comfort is not known until that comfort is shared.

So don’t waste the pain you have suffered and the comfort you have received. Rather today see the hurt in another’s eyes and share the encouragement of God with them.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)

“You just don’t understand!”

I suppose every child has at least thought it if not said it to his parents. It’s hard for a child to imagine that old mom and dad have ever had feelings at all, much less feelings that the child is now experiencing. Particularly when the child is not getting his way!

And sometimes, when our Father in heaven says “No,” we too pout and wonder if He really sees and knows what we are going through.

The answer is in the Incarnation. God became flesh and He dwelt among us. He did not dwell among us as royalty with no understanding of mundane daily existence, but as the least among us. He did not dwell among us without facing our temptations, but was tempted as we are yet without sin. He lived our lives so that He knows what we face except He overcame at every point where we have failed.

The result is two-fold. First, as the sinless Son of Man, He was the only acceptable sacrifice for our sins. Because He faced our temptations without giving in to them, He was under no judgment for sin. And thus, He was able to pay the price for our sins on the cross.

And, second, as the suffering Son of Man, He knows what it is to suffer. He knows what it is to live on this earth with no place to call home, no place to lay His head. He knows what it is to thirst and hunger and deal with unreasonable people. And, He knows what it is for the Father’s will to require suffering, namely on the cross.

This means that when we come to Him, even when we don’t understand, what we find is mercy and grace to help in time of need.

“Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)

“Let us reason together.” It’s a legal term. It involves exploring the facts to reach a decision. And the facts were clear: the people were living disobediently in sin. (1:1-17)

What are the facts of your life? It is not a question of appearance, but reality. A person can appear religious but be unrighteous. The Lord calls for brutal honesty. Just the facts. What we really are.

The facts examined, a decision is required. The good news is that the Judge is gracious. He is forgiving. He is able to wash away the blood guilt from our hands and purify us.

But we, too, have a decision to make. Be willing and obedient (1:19) or refuse and rebel (1:20). This is always the choice we face: trust and obey and know the joy of the Lord or disbelieve and disobey and bring about our own destruction.

What choice will you make today?

If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. But certainly God has heard me; He has attended to the voice of my prayer. (Psalm 66:18-19)

Have you regarded iniquity in your heart? Have you seen sin in your life and secreted it away, cherishing it, rationalizing it? Lust, greed, anger, jealousy, resentment, covetousness…?

We all have at some point. And some of us are now. Our sin tucked away, we play the part of the religiously pious. In other words, we are hypocrites.

Captured by the view of our sin, we cannot be captured by a view of the Lord. Whatever prayer we may pray, it goes unheard. Its trajectory falls short as our attention is drawn to our sin instead of the Lord.

The answer is confession, laying our heart bare before the Lord, repenting of our sin and seeking His face and His forgiveness.

As a dad, on many occasions I would say to my children, “If you want me to listen to you, look at me and speak to me.”

Our Father is saying the same thing to us. “Repent. Turn from your sin. Look at me. Speak to me.”

My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. (1 John 1:8-9)

The glorious reality of forgiveness from sin must never be misconstrued as license to sin. Indeed, the forgiven soul longs for fellowship with the merciful God, wanting nothing to interfere with the sweet blessedness of walking daily with the Father.

And yet, for now we find ourselves caught between two worlds, longing for the resurrection and new body while still living on earth in bodies of sin. So John writes “so that you may not sin” yet immediately adds “and if anyone sins”. And so we live.

The encouragement John gives is not for the person who abuses God’s grace as an excuse for sinning. Rather it is an encouragement for that child of God who grieves and loathes a committal of sin. It is a word of hope for the heart frightened to approach the Father, like a child in terror of what dad will do when he gets home. It is a reminder that we have a Father and an Advocate.

God is our Father. Nothing can destroy that. The fellowship can be hurt, but the relationship endures. He loves us not just when we “make Him proud”, but even when we stumble.

Our Advocate is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the reason God is our Father. He died in our place for our sins, taking the wrath and shame that was due us that we might be made right with God. Having received by faith all that Jesus has done for us, we freely come in His name to our Father to confess our sins, our doubts, our struggles. And our Father listens, forgives, encourages and strengthens.

Child of God, are you grieving sin and struggling with confession? Tell your Father all. He will not refuse you because of your sin but will receive you because of Jesus’ righteousness.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)

If we assert that we have no guilt of sin before God, we lead ourselves astray. The truth is that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 2:23) A refusal to recognize sin is a refusal to recognize one’s need for Christ.

But, if we confess our sins…

To confess is to say the same thing as another. When we confess our sins, we speak in agreement with God about our sins, namely that we have sinned, and that not merely in general, but in specific. In confession we name our sins as offenses before the holy and righteous God. We admit our sinfulness and brokenness in real and specific ways. We cry out to God with the Psalmist, Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. (Psalm 51:2)

And though we are sinful, God is faithful to His Gospel, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness. God did not place His Son on the cross to then ignore the sacrifice. Repentant, believing souls continue to find forgiveness and righteousness from the merciful God in the sacrifice of His Son. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

Jesus, the Son of God, perfectly trusted the Father. Even when facing the suffering of the cross with all its shame. Trusting the Father’s will, Jesus looked beyond the momentary suffering to the eternal joy of the Father’s right hand. And so He prayed, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” (Matthew 26:39)

Hearing God, that is knowing and doing His will, requires faith. The race we are called to run must be run with endurance because there are things along the way to endure. The Christian life is not the comfortable life. Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation.” (John 16:33) So tribulation we will have.

How do we endure?

Consider the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11. These were men and women like you and me. They were sinners given to doubts and fears and struggles. But they trusted God. What God desired from them is what He desires from us, that we trust Him wherever He leads and through whatever befalls us.

Look to Jesus. Jesus is the “author,” or captain and leader of our faith. He leads us to faith and in faith, showing us by His life of faith what it truly means to trust the Father. He is the finisher, or perfecter, of faith. He fulfilled the ideal of faith in His earthly life. He is the fully sufficient object of our faith. And in us He is growing and developing our faith.

As we seek God’s plan for our lives, He will take us places we never could have anticipated and into situations we never would have chosen. And through it all His will is for us to trust Him, rely upon Him and thus do His will.

“If the objective of God is that we would depend upon Him, then weakness is an advantage.” –Allistar Begg

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16-17)

The Gospel is the good news that though we were justly condemned by our own sin and rightly under the wrath of the righteous God, Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, came to this earth, born of the virgin Mary, to live the life we failed to live and die the death we should have died. In His death on the cross He bore our sins, enduring God’s wrath on our behalf that we might be forgiven and justified. And being found in Him we are clothed by His righteousness, reconciled to our heavenly Father.

This Gospel reveals how a sinful man may be endued with God’s righteousness – by faith alone.

The Christian life is “from faith.” The sinner is justified before God through faith alone in the Son of God. This was true of Abraham and it is true of us. (Romans 4:1-8)

The Christian life is also “to faith.” The just live by faith. The source of the Christian’s present life is faith in Jesus.

Faith is the whole of the Christian life. Through it we are saved, by it we live and in it all of our eternal hopes rest.

If we are willing to trust God for eternity, are we not willing to trust Him for the present?

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. (1 John 5:4)

For the child of God, knowing and doing the will of God in keeping His commandments is not burdensome (5:3). God’s commandments are not heavy weights to be borne. Hear the call of Jesus:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Why are His commandments not burdensome? Because we have been born of God. We were dead in our trespasses and sins but are now alive in Christ. And Christ in us enables us to live an overcoming life.

And who experiences this victory over the world, its sinfulness, death and hell? Those who believe in Jesus. (5:5) Faith is the victory, the entrustment of our lives to the Son of God who died for us, was buried for us and then Himself secured our victory when He rose from the dead.

What Jesus did for us justifies us before the Father and what Jesus does for us by His Spirit within us and by interceding for us enables us to daily live the victorious life. In Jesus we can know that God is pleased with us and we can know what His good pleasure is for us and actually do it.

Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?