How to Cast Your Cares upon Jesus

1 Peter 5:6-11 says, “HUMBLE YOURSELVES therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you. CAST ALL YOUR ANXIETIES (CARES) ON HIM, for he cares about you. Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. RESIST HIM, FIRM IN YOUR FAITH, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself RESTORE, ESTABLISH, and STRENGTHEN you. To him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”

Most believers in Jesus Christ know that we are to cast our cares upon Jesus as this Scripture instructs, but most believers have no idea how to do just that. Anxieties and cares will remain anxieties and cares, until they are resolved. Anxieties are what God calls “ruminating thoughts,” which are defined as constant and repetitive thoughts about something; typically a problem or situation. These ruminating thoughts often generate unresolved emotions, anxieties, or fear that do not have an OFF button.

So…how exactly do you cast your cares upon Jesus? How exactly do you resolve your anxieties?  

Well…you do it exactly the same way you cast your cares upon other humans. When you cast your cares upon your family and friends, you talk to them about your situation, your anxieties, and how you are FEELING. In response, what you we most likely receive to your cares is first their compassion, and then their best advice, based on their limited knowledge of what is going on. Their advice may be good, but unfortunately the person you are casting your care upon will not have an intimate understanding of how you are wired, exactly what you are feeling, or what is the root of your emotions. Therefore, after casting your cares upon another human, your cares and anxieties will most likely remain unresolved.

Jesus, on the other hand, knows EVERYTHING about you. Before you even cast your care upon him, he already knows exactly what you are feeling. He also knows everything about your life: your past, your present, and your future. He knows all the traumas you have experienced, your strengths and weaknesses, your triggers, and your blindspots. Therefore, Jesus is the perfect one to cast your cares upon. For he desires to SPEAK INTO your cares, anxieties, and emotions through his personal words, love, insight and guidance for you. He desires to help you make sense of how you are feeling, and to pull out the root, or lie the enemy is speaking into your ear, in order to STOP your ruminating thoughts.

Satan is notorious for hooking onto a believer’s UNCAST CARE. For your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. So don’t let Satan hook onto you, by not casting your cares upon Jesus. Jesus wants to exchange your emotions for his PEACE! For he is the PRINCE of PEACE! Jesus is very close to the broken hearted, but in order for him to help you, you must physically cast your cares upon him. In doing so, Jesus promises to restore, establish and strengthen you.

So “CASTING YOUR CARES” upon Jesus is all about having a conversation with him, in order for him to give you his wisdom, insight, guidance, and peace about your circumstances and/or situation.  

STEPS

1: Cast your emotions, of whatever is specifically plaguing you at the moment, to Jesus. Start by saying, “Jesus, today I am feeling  ___________________________.” (sad, angry, anxious, panicked, confused, mad, hurt, scared, bored, distracted, lonely, tormented, disappointed, fearful, etc, or all of the above.)

2: Ask Jesus, “What do you want me to KNOW about my feelings?”

3: Listen for his reply. Jesus’s response will usually be the first thing that comes to your mind. Or it may be a thought, a vision, an impression, or something you remember from your past.

4: Repeat out loud exactly what Jesus says to you 7 times. When you do this, what seems like INFORMATION, will become REVELATION.

5: Ask Jesus, “Why is it important for me to know that (insert whatever Jesus just said to you)?”

6: Listen for Jesus’s reply.

7: Repeat out loud exactly what Jesus says to you 7 times. When you do this, Jesus’s words will move from your head to your heart. HEAD KNOWLEDGE will become HEART KNOWLEDGE.

8: Repeat the steps, going deeper and deeper into the WHY you are feeling the emotions you are feeling. Let Jesus speak into your CARE, so that you can see and understand your concern from Jesus’s heavenly perspective.

EXAMPLE

I was feeling very emotional one day, but couldn’t place my finger on the exact emotion. I knew I needed prayer, so I asked two ladies to lead me in prayer, so I could get to the bottom of my unresolved emotions. I didn’t know where my emotions were coming from, but since Jesus had placed upon me a few days prior that it had something to do with the abortion I had when I was 20, I went back to that day in my mind. When the ladies asked me what I was feeling on the day of my abortion, I said, “I FEEL like I failed Jesus,” even though I wasn’t a true believer when I had the abortion. This was the first time I had ever voiced this emotion, as it was probably suppressed for all those years. I then asked Jesus, “What do you want me to know about me feeling that I failed you?” Jesus replied, “You have never failed me.” Jesus’s words at first sounded like a natural response to someone you are trying to comfort. So, I repeated what Jesus said to me 7 times out loud: “You have never failed me,” as I knew there had to be a deeper meaning to what Jesus was saying to me. By the 7th time I spoke Jesus’s words out loud, the word NEVER was highlighted in my mind. Jesus’s words became “You have NEVER failed me.”

Hmmm….what was Jesus wanting to reveal to me?

So I asked Jesus, “Why is it important for me to know that I have NEVER failed you? Immediately memories came back to my mind of times where I felt like I had utterly failed Jesus in my walk with him. So what Jesus was revealing to me was, “Not only did you not fail me when you had the abortion, you have never failed me in your walk with me.”

Jesus’s personal words to me resolved so many things. I realized that this lie had been implanted into my heart 37 years ago on the day of my abortion by Satan himself. You see how devious and sneaky Satan is. He is the one who convinced me to get an abortion in the first place, and then he made me feel like I failed Jesus. What deception. Satan’s lie that he placed in my heart had been following me for 37 years. Without me even knowing it, I believed when things didn’t go quite the way I had hoped they would go, that I had failed Jesus!

What Jesus wanted me to know is that is just not true. Instead, Jesus wanted me to know, “YOU HAVE NEVER FAILED ME!” As well as, “NOTHING YOU HAVE DONE, OR WILL DO,  WILL EVER SEPARATE YOU FROM MY UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FOR YOU! I AM SO PROUD OF YOU MY PRECIOUS DAUGHTER. WE WILL DO GREAT THINGS TOGETHER.”

On the day I cast my cares upon Jesus, I didn’t know that a lie of Satan would be revealed to me by Jesus, that he knew was hindering and holding me back from the fullness of my purpose and destiny in his kingdom.  In fact, I thought I had already fully healed from the trauma of my abortion years prior. Apparently, Jesus knew there was more that needed to be revealed and exposed, so that I could start believing his truth. This day of prayer made me realize how important it is to FULLY CAST EVERY CARE UPON JESUS. For you never know what Jesus will reveal to you, or what deep seated wound he desires to heal!

May Yahweh bless you and keep you,