Submission

1 Peter 5:7 KJV 

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

This is one of my favorite verses in the bible. The amplified bible says it "casting all your cares [all your anxieties, all your worries, and all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares about you [with deepest affection, and watches over you very carefully]."

I love this! We have an open door to come to God with all the things that are bothering us. We can know that he cares about us and the things that are concerning us. This is a life verse for me. I don't like worry, and I love that we can go to God in prayer with all the things that bother us, so, I rehearse and recite this verse often. 

Recently, while I was going over this verse in the morning, I felt like God urged me to look at the context of this verse. 

A couple verses before, 1 Peter 5:5, says "Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: . . "

Then it goes into the verse so many of us know and love: "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." You see, the context is submission. We all need to submit to someone. Young should submit to the elder. Wives should submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22). Everyone to governing authorities (Romans 13:1). 

The problem is we don't want to submit. Do we? I don't want to submit to my husband. I think I am smarter. I think I know better. I got better grades than him. I am not as impulsive. We can come up with all kinds of excuses. We are creative about things like this because the truth is submitting . . . it can be scary. It can worry us. Do our leaders even know what they are doing? Will they make the right decisions? Do they have our best interest at heart?

But we don't submit to others out of trust in others. We submit to them out of trust in God. Because God is telling us to submit to them. He is saying "Go ahead. Listen to them. Even if they are knuckleheads. It will be okay. Because I will make it okay." I believe if we do things out of reverence for God there is a special anointing - a blessing - over us for doing so. And even if they make a mistake (which is certainly going to happen) or we make a mistake (which of course happens) we can trust him to work it for the good.

Romans 8:28

And we know. that all thing work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.

What if they are not godly? What if they are down right evil? We get a pass then right? Wrong. I will leave you with 1 Peter 2:18-20 in the message bible. But don't close your ears to it because you are not a "servants" or "slaves" as put in the KJV. I believe this message applies to all of us.

1 Peter 2:18-20 MSG

You who are servants, be good servants to your masters - not just to good masters, but also to bad ones. What counts is that you put up with it for God's sake when you're treated badly for no good reason. There's no particular virtue in accepting punishment that you well deserve. But if you're treated badly for good behavior and continue in spite of it to be a good servant, that is what counts with God.