Sunday, May 25, 2014

"What is God's Promise?" - Casting Your Burdens on the Lord, Part 3

When we cast our burdens on the Lord, what happens? What does He promise to do about our distress and pain? Cast your burden on the LORD is His command, in Psalm 55:22. And His promise follows: and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

God’s promise in Psalm 55:22 is in two parts. He makes a promise for right now, while we’re struggling with our burdens, and He also makes a promise for forever, for any and all burdens we might experience in the course of our lives.

A Promise for Right Now
Our dear Lord says that, as we cast our burdens on Him, He will sustain us. The word sustain in Hebrew could be translated “nourish” or “feed.” The Lord used the same word to promise Elijah that He would take care of him during the drought: You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there (1 Kings 17:4). And in Nehemiah’s day, the Levites remembered how God had taken care of His people in the wilderness: Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell (Nehemiah 9:21).

For Elijah the burden of a nation-wide drought and famine didn't disappear. But God nourished him through it. For the people of Israel, their sojourn in the wilderness still lasted 40 years. But God sustained them through it.

When you cast your burden on the Lord, it might not disappear. But you can count on Him to provide what you need, to nourish and sustain you, so you will be able to get through it.

A Promise for Forever
God’s promise in Psalm 55:22 also has an eternal dimension: he will never allow the righteous to be moved.

“To move” means to waver, to slip, to fall. In the end the God upon whom we cast our burdens takes care of more than the burden. He steadies our whole lives, so that we will not fall from His grace or fail to arrive at His intended destination. David used the same word in Psalm 16:8 - I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Like a ship buffeted by heavy winds, we feel the force and weight of our burdens. But our great God anchors us so that no storm can sink us and nothing in heaven or earth can separate us from the One who loves us.

Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never allow the righteous to be moved.