Thursday, September 15, 2016

You trust God to keep the universe going, but can you trust Him to take care of your current problem?

Proverbs 16:20

Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.

Trust the Rock

Jesus once said that whoever hears His words and obeys them will be like one who builds their house on the rock, and when the rains and the winds come, it will not be moved because the foundation is built on the rock (Matt. 7:24-25). But whoever hears His words and doesn’t do what He says is like the one who builds his house on sand, and when the storms come, the house falls, and how great that fall will be (Matt. 7:26-27). Jesus’ point is that it’s not enough to hear–we must obey. The one who built on the rock is not guaranteed that it won’t be hit with storms. Both will be hit by storms, but one will stand and the other will fall. The only difference is whether or not the homeowner will listen to Jesus’ words. Hear and obey and you will weather the storm; hear and ignore and great will be the fall.

Trust the Word

The wise words of Solomon tell us that whoever gives heed to the word–and I believe that word is the Word of God–will be blessed, just as those who trust in the Lord (Prov. 16:20). Trust in the Word is the same as trust in God because you cannot separate the Word of God from the God of the Word. If we trust His Word, which comes by hearing (Rom. 10:17) and reading the Word, we will be blessed. It is a simple matter of cause and effect. If I read the instructions for putting on a parachute, I’d have a lot more trust in how to put it on and use it and be blessed by not free-falling when I jumped out of the plane, but if I ignored the words of the instructions, I couldn’t trust the parachute and would surely be headed for a fall and a great fall at that.

Trust in God

To me, trust is belief. We have a chair in our church that I often use as an example of faith and trust. I can see the chair and believe it exists, but until I sit on it, I do not yet trust or have faith in it. Only when I sit in it do I not only believe in the chair, but I put my trust in it that it will hold me up and have faith that I won’t come crashing down. Since Jesus is said to uphold the universe by the word of His power, can you not also trust him to take care of your current problem? If He can uphold all things by His power, what is your problem that is too much for Him?

A Closing Prayer

Great God, You alone are the One Person I can trust in a world where precious little else can be trusted. Even when things seem to be falling apart around me, You are supreme and sovereign over all things. Therefore, I can fully trust Your Word (the Bible), I can fully trust Your blessing when I obey Your Word, and I can trust in You by resting upon You. I know I can trust You, God, Who keeps the universe going, and I can trust You to take care of my current problems, no matter what they are. To You, everything is small, even the heavens, which are measured with Your finger (Isaiah 40:12), and I say to You with confidence that I can trust a God like You. In Jesus’ name I pray.

Amen

No comments:

Post a Comment