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Cast Your Cares

The Spirit of Abba, The Spirit of Love!

February 22, 2023 • Michael Brennan • Psalm 91, John 7:37–38, 1 Peter 5:7

“Casting your cares on Him for He cares for you.” (1 Pet.5:7) It is easy to twice misread what Peter is saying here.


First, it does not say casting our ‘problems’ but rather our ‘cares,’ the real problems in our lives. A financial crisis, for example, is not the real problem. The problem is what it’s saying about us, about who we are, failures, victims, etc.


Casting, actually, means to slap out of one’s hand or to let fall. So, Holy Spirit is commanding us to let go or slap away all the care from attaching itself to us.


The second misread is wrongly assuming that until you get rid of all your cares, He will never be able to give His Care to you. Actually, just the opposite is true.


The power to slap off all your cares is because His Care was there all along, just waiting for you and I to let go of all our hidden self-effort to handle, deal with, fix, or manage our cares. So, that His ever-present help in time of need, His Care, can “set us on high, be with us, deliver us, honor us, satisfy us and show us His salvation.” (Ps. 91) Wow, all that just hiding behind my cares.


“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me”, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37-38) “Out of your inner most being will flow rivers,” lots and lots and lots, in fact, floods of living Water, His Care.


We have not received a spirit of bondage to fear. So, if it’s not from Him, then, where did we get it? Life blesses and life bites. And, every time life bites us, we file that pain in our memory banks and then, it comes out as fear. The deeper and more intense those bites are, the more we unconsciously invite the spirit of bondage to become our motivator, the pain manager inside of us. 


Bondage means it owns you. Self-effort will not remove it. We can work hard to handle it, but it only goes into hiding, waiting for the next bite to show you who is in charge.


But you have received (not in your brain) The Spirit of Abba, The Spirit of Love. This is not feelings of love but Love Himself! … This Love is not out there somewhere but in your innermost being. This Spirit of Love is way down deeper than any spirit of fear.


Perfect Love, His Love, not our love, expels and drives out all, yes, all fear. That Spirit of Love is already here, and He’s longing for His NOW Love to be activated. He is longing for us to hold fast to our confession now. With our ‘yes and amen,’ He, not fear, can be our Motivator, our Manager, our ABBA!!!