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I Care from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo.

While I was praying about the message today, I prayed: “Lord help me feed Your sheep. What are Your people are missing today? What can I tell them to give them hope?” I heard two words spoken slowly, but very firmly: “I Care.” Then a flood of thoughts and scriptures came to mind.

We truly don’t understand how much the Lord cares for us. We mouth the words, but under the surface, our hearts often believe something else, a coming punishment. Religion, doctrine, and dogma can create a holy gap between us and God if we allow it. It distances Him. We can feel like a God that holy could never truly care for us, not if He really knew us. He worked so hard to bridge the gap between Heaven and Earth, between God and man, but we try to build it back. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. God took action, and it was His deliberate choice to redeem us. The people that He loved when He gave His Son includes you and me. Don’t exclude yourself from His love.

I want to examine the story of the sinking fishing boat in Mark chapter 4:

On the same day, when evening had come, He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.” Now when they had left the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was. And other little boats were also with Him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow.

And they awoke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” Mark 4:35–40 NKJV

There was a great storm and as the waves crashed into the small fishing boat and it began to sink. The disciples began to panic, but Jesus slept calmly in the back of the boat on a pillow. The disciples woke Him up and said “Teacher do You not care that we are perishing?” Jesus calmed the storm and then asked them “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?” The disciples were afraid of the storm, their faith was shaken, and at least part of it was because they felt the Lord Jesus did not care what happened to them. He cared, and nothing happened to them while in that boat.

The Lord asks each of the same question: Why are you so fearful? Do you not know that I care? The world is so full of violence, diseases, terror, disasters, and the media concentrates it, boils it down, exaggerates it, and turns it into a horror show to watch. Turn your thoughts to Me, and know that I care for you. You are not going to perish while I am in your boat.

The Lord cares what happens to us. Jesus said it so well and I cannot improve it, so I will just read His words in Matthew chapter 6:25:

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matthew 6:25–34 NKJV).

The Lord cares and He does not want you to worry. He is not on a distant moon far, far away. His Spirit lives inside of us and inhabits the air around us. He knows the real you, who you really are, and He loves you anyway. Compare these two scriptures:

The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you. (Jeremiah 31:3 NKJV). 

Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:43–44 NKJV). 

The Lord loved Israel and He drew their hearts to Him with lovingkindness. Jesus told those that rejected Him that no one can come to the Father unless they are drawn to Him, otherwise the default action is to reject Him. So everyone of you that came to hear a word from the Lord today are being drawn. It is you that He is loving with an everlasting love, and it is you that He is drawing with lovingkindness. You. He is saying: “I Care.”

You can pray this with me if you like:

Prayer: Heavenly Father, I thank You so much for caring for me. Please help me realize the depth of Your everlasting love and to live my life immersed in Your lovingkindness. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.