Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you. 1 Peter 5:6-7
Humbly Submitting to a Mighty God
What should our response be to God’s activity in our lives? What is his promise? What do we need to surrender to be humble and gentle toward others? Why?
How do you view God? They say that your first impression of God is based off of your earthly father, and some people were not blessed with a kind, loving, and gentle father. Some could never trust their father because he rarely ever followed through. His promises were empty, or he was drunk, or just plain selfish. It is hard to break through all those barriers to see the truth about our Heavenly Father. God is a promise keeping God. What He says is truth for all eternity. He follows through on every promise He makes. He is a mighty God, but loving and gentle too. He cares about us and loves us enough to give His Son for the payment for our sins. That sounds like a Father to be trusted. To be able to completely surrender and submit to God we must truly understand who He is.
In this passage, Peter is speaking to younger Christians who are not in leadership in the church and may be less mature in their faith. He is encouraging them to be humble under the mighty hand of God and urging them to realize the role of a mighty and sovereign God in their lives.
When Peter says Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, He is talking about trusting God, and in a spirit of submission, laying down our own desires for what we think and want our lives to look like. It means trusting God and accepting His plan and will for our lives, no matter what that looks like. It is a hard thing to do in a world where we are told we can be a butterfly if we want to identify as a butterfly. The world encourages us to look inward, to ourselves, and to build the life we want for ourselves, no matter the cost to others.
We submit in humility when we really understand who God is. When we understand that God is sovereign and omnipotent and omniscient, we know we can trust Him to handle everything. When we understand who God is, we should want to submit to His mighty hand. However, sometimes we may submit and then take it back very quickly. When we submit to Him, He will exalt us in the right time – His time.
We think we can control the outcomes of the situations in our lives, but we are never in control in the first place. When we try to hang on to the controls, we struggle unnecessarily. We can trust Him in all things at all times. There will be tests and times of adversity. How we react in these situations will tell the world around us who our God is and what His character is. Through our faithful submission and acknowledging that we know He is in control and that we trust Him with our worries, concerns, and cares, He will be glorified.
Peter then told goes on to say casting all your cares on Him, because He cares about you. We can submit – or cast all our cares on Him – because we know He loves us and cares about us. He cares what our “cares” are. He promises that He will exalt us when it is time, because He cares about us. To cast is not to lay down gently, but rather to literally throw something. God wants it all. He wants to carry our burdens for us because He cares for us. He wants us to trust Him.
When we are dealing with other people, God expects us to treat them with kindness. That doesn’t mean we tolerate abuse, but it does mean that we have to put ourselves in their shoes and try to see from their perspective. We have to surrender our own desires and selfishness. We can trust Him in our relationships too. The other person may not treat us the same, but we cannot control other people. We are responsible for our own actions and reactions. God asks us to surrender all things to Him and He will lift us up when the time is right. Surrendering in submission to a mighty God will also give us a peace like no other. Nothing on this earth can give the peace He gives.
