TRUST IN THE LORD

“Trust in the LORD, and do good …”
(Ps 37:3)

Trust is the foundation of obedience. It is the substance of faith that our feet must walk upon in order for us to step into the things He has spoken to us. In order to obey that which we have heard the initial step is always taken upon the grounds of trust. We must trust Him who has instructed us to go. “For faith cometh by hearing….” The inspiration of faith arises within our hearts concerning the thing that God has spoken, and then comes the test; do we trust the One who has spoken that word? How many times has God spoken to His people His thoughts, desires and direction only to have them look at the things (obstacles) and fail. Why? Because the ability to do good, is dependent upon our capacity to trust Him in the thing He has purposed. Trust is vital to relationship. It is that history of interaction that gives us the ability to continue to step out into the unknown because we consider Him “faithful and true”. With every new discovery of His faithfulness there is a corresponding “go” from Him into new places of our inheritance in Him. “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac…ACCOUNTING that God was able to raise him up…” (Heb. 11:17 – 19) Abraham’s offering was the result of his accounting of the character and the faithfulness of God. This utter trust became the enablement to do the thing that God had asked.

How many of God’s people stand paralyzed at the door that stands before us whereas the only way we can step into these new places is on the grounds of faith and trust. This can become the place of disappointment and confusion or it can become the place of a new revelation. All the sermons, revelations and knowledge that we have been given can take us no further than this. It is the place of doing. It is the place of becoming. It is the juncture between the former things and the new things. It is our personal crisis. It is the point at which no man can help us. Never find rest in hearing; it is in the doing that our faith is revealed.

“For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them:
but the word preached did not profit them,
not being mixed with faith in them that heard it”
(Heb. 4:2).

The word that has been ministered to us is only proved to be profitable in us through the medium of obedience to that word. James exhorts us to be “doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving ourselves…” May the Lord bring into our lives the healthy Fear of the Lord that we might move on in the things He has called us to. As we are exhorted in Hebrews “Let us therefore fear…” Fear what? “…lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest…” The fear of the Lord will impel us to move; our trust in Him will enable us to step out until what He has spoken becomes the thing that we have done. God’s purpose is to have His word become flesh. That is, through the hearing and doing of His Will by the ministration of the Holy Spirit, we are to become “bone of His bone and flesh of his flesh”. As the scriptures declare “…as He is, so are we in this world”. These are staggering statements but it is not in us becoming something distinct in ourselves; it is in our lives becoming hid with Christ in God. He who walks in His light reveals who He is…so that light gives us reason to hope!

In all of this there is a gracious and loving God who is calling us unto Himself.   That call  is not only the desire of God for us to come to Him but the provision to do so; drawn upon through the walk of faith and trust. It is when the feet of the priests touched the river that the Jordan parted. Without the step there is no ministration of the provision. It was in the digging of the trenches that an army perishing of thirst was satisfied. God would have us to know that IN the very act of obedience is the revelation of His provision.  As the old hymn proclaims to us from generations before “Trust and obey for there is no other way…”

Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land,
and verily thou shalt be fed.
Psalm 37:3

B. Troxel