ALWAYS ANOTHER REASON TO TRUST

Our lives are constantly shifting. We wake up every day and face a new list of challenges and doubts. We navigate our own path of uncertainty with as much faith as we can muster, and the next day we wake up and do it all over again.

Maybe today your challenge involves how to pay a bill, or concerns over your health, or the health of someone you love. Maybe your uncertainty includes doubts about your faith, or doubts about whether you'll get that job, or questions that remain unanswered about relationships, or finances or your future.

Usually, these concerns involve situations that we have little to now control over. So, ultimately, all we can really do is to take our needs to Jesus and lay them down at His feet.

These are reasons to trust Him and the reality is, once those issues are resolved, there will always be another one right behind that one to take its place.

In other words, we will always need to come to Jesus with something. We will always have a problem, a concern, a worry, a prayer, a need, etc., that we cannot carry. We will always have another reason to trust Jesus and to rest in His presence.

This is God's grace for us. He wants us to know that we can trust Him. He is constantly providing us with yet another opportunity to exercise our trust. He wants us to get used to trusting Him. He wants us to know that He can be trusted - with everything and anything that may come our way.

We can trust Him because He is good.
We can trust Him because He loves us.
We can trust Him because He has proven Himself to be trustworthy, over and over again.

The good news is: There will always be another reason to trust Him.

So, you might as well start now.

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LISTEN:

[Subversive Radio Podcast] Trust: The Key To Everything by Keith Giles

I Won The Lottery!

Why do people dream of winning the lottery?

Obviously, it’s because they dream of a life without worry and stress.

We all want that, don’t we?

Of course, most of us believe that if we had millions – or even billions – of dollars in our bank account, we’d have nothing to worry about. We’d be set for life.

But, as citizens of the Kingdom of God, we already have that assurance from Jesus.

Jesus tells us that our daily bread is secure and He has our today – and our tomorrow – under complete control.

In Matthew 6, Jesus confidently informs His disciples that if they will change their perspective to align with the Kingdom of God, they can enjoy the peaceful, stress-free sort of life they’ve always dreamed of:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" [Matthew 6:25-26] 

So, according to Jesus we already have all we need for our life today. Our Heavenly Father knows what we need before we ask and He has already taken care of everything in advance.

Jesus also tells us that we do not need to worry about tomorrow. Why? Because God has everything - absolutely everything - under complete and perfect control:

"So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." [Matthew 6:31-34 ]

Of course, if God is in control that means that you and I are not.

Here is where most of us really struggle, honestly. 

We want to enjoy a life without worry, but we also want to be in control of our lives. Somehow we think we are in control, but we’re not. Control is an illusion. Only God is in control, and if we rest in the reality of His unending love for us, we can let go of that steering wheel with joy knowing that He knows what He’s doing.

Without trust, our lives are filled with anxiety and strife. But if we can let go of everything and trust that God is good, that He really loves us, and that He really only wants what’s best for us, then trusting Him is the only response that makes sense.

Are you in Christ, Jesus today? Then celebrate your great fortune! You’ve just won the most incredible lottery of all time. You’re rich in all the things that matter – and many more things that don’t.

You have no cause to worry about anything, because God has your whole life in His capable hands. You don’t need to have concern about what tomorrow holds, because you know who holds tomorrow.

The truth is, worldly riches don’t really bring us peace, or comfort, or joy. Just a glance at the news or the tabloids will confirm this for you. No, peace, comfort, joy and life are only found at their source. Jesus is our peace. He is our comfort. He is our joy. He is our life.

You and I are already over our heads, swimming in the deepest depths of an ocean of blessings found only in the unsearchable riches of Christ. There is no greater treasure than that.

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength." [Philippians 4:11-13 ]

Some people are so poor, all they have is money. You and I have been adopted as sons and daughters into the family of God, who created the Universe and owns all things. This same God has invited us to call him "Abba" or "Poppa" and He assures us that it is His good pleasure to give to us the Kingdom. 

Celebrate!

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UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH #3: God Is Trustworthy

One of the hardest truths for Christians to accept is the idea that God is trustworthy. They can believe in Him – that He exists and that He created the Universe – but to surrender control of their lives to Him? Not so much.

To me this is the most tragic of all the unbelievable truths, because if we cannot trust God then who can we trust?

Our inability to trust God, I think, says more about our need to be in control, or our fear of relinquishing control, than it does about our belief that God isn’t worthy of our trust.

In other words, if we think about it, God is the most trustworthy being in the Universe. He created us. He laid aside His power to become one of us. He allowed us to have power over Him. He forgave us as we were killing Him. He loved us enough to die in our place. He rose again to ensure that we could spend eternity together. He’s preparing a place for us to be with Him forever. So, how could we ever consider someone like this to be unworthy of our trust?

I think it has to be because we just prefer to be the ones in control of our lives. We don’t like the idea of letting go of the steering wheel for anyone else, not even a God who went as far as this to demonstrate His complete and utter trustworthiness. Which is sad.

If we could actually believe this truth that God is trustworthy, and prove it by surrendering our lives to Him, then we’d experience all the sweet joys and wonderful blessings that He intends to share with us. We would rest in Him and trust that He has everything under complete control.  We would experience the sweet peace that only comes from allowing this loving Father to take us with Him on an amazing adventure of life that He has planned in advance for us to follow.

A person who truly trusted God with everything in their life would have no worries about tomorrow, no stress about finances, no concern for what will happen next, and have nothing but complete peace and joy on a daily basis. Much the same was how we imagine winning the lottery might make us feel, actually. Except that those who win the lottery seldom find actual peace and those who are wealthy and famous have just as much (if not more) angst and pain and worry in their lives.

If we believed that God was trustworthy we could obey Jesus when He says that we should “not worry about tomorrow” or about “what we will eat or drink, or about our body and what we will wear” but simply trust that “Your Heavenly Father knows that you need these things” and let go of our worry in order to “seek first the Kingdom of God”.

If only we could trust God with everything. If only we really believed that He was trustworthy.

If only.

-kg

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