Trusting God Means Seeking Him First

Do you trust wholly in the Lord, or do you only run to Him when you are desperate, having exhausted all other sources of help?

God loves you!

He wants you to come boldly to Him for help (Hebrews 4:16, Philippians 4:6-7).
He wants you to acknowledge Him and thank Him for all things (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
He wants you to renew your mind (Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:20-24) by reading and applying His will.

See how well God's way works - prove it to yourself first, so you can easily prove it to others also (Romans 12:1).

When you let God guide you by His word - the Bible - you will have instruction that is consistent and does not contradict itself. It is the same for you and for anyone who willingly applies themselves to God's word and will.

Turn to God. Train yourself to seek Him first.

• In good times with praise.
• In difficult times with prayer.
• In all times with thanksgiving!

Let His word direct your steps and find help to faithfully flourish by following His instruction (Psalm 1:1-3, Proverbs 16:3, James 1:25)!

You can do it! So can I!!

God Has Given Us His Word

When you hear someone say, ‘I give you my word”, we understand this statement to be an assurance, a serious promise or vow that what they have said they will do and what they’ve told you is the truth.

God has given us His word.

God promised that a flood would never again destroy the earth (Genesis 8:21-22; 9:11-17) – He gave us a sign - His rainbow in the cloud - to remind us of this promise.

God promised that through all nations the earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3) and He fulfilled that promise (Galatians 3:26-29).

God’s promises can be trusted. As Joshua wrote in Joshua 21:45 “Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.” The same can be said still today!

When God promises to give us His peace that surpasses all understanding when we give Him our anxieties (Philippians 4:6-7), His word can be trusted!

When God promises to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness when we confess our sins to Him (1 John 1:9), His word can be trusted!

When God promises that His armor will allow us to stand against the wiles of the devil when we put it on every part of it, that the shield of faith will quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one (Ephesians 6:10-18), His word can be trusted!

God has given us His Word.

God so loved the world that He gave His Son, Jesus (John 3:16). Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1-5; 14) – God has given us His Word!  

Through Jesus fulfilling the promise given to Abram, all nations have been blessed! Because of Jesus’ perfect sacrifice we have opportunity to have our sins forgiven, by being buried with Him (in baptism, Romans 6:3-5) and being raised, just like He was, to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4-14). Jesus was declared to be the Son of God when God raised Him from the dead (Romans 1:3-4) and when we are raised out of the burial that is baptism we, too, are declared to be children of God (Romans 8:13-17, 1 John 3:1-3). In Christ we are blessed with life (John 14:6; 20:30-31, 1 John 5:11-13), hope (Hebrews 6:13-20, Colossians 1:27), and every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3-14)!    

God has given us His Word.

God loves us SO much that He has given His Word, Jesus, to give us life in His name, and His love has also provided us with His Word, written and preserved for us to read, understand, and obey!

It is by hearing God’s word that we establish our faith (Romans 10:17). In God’s word we find everything we need to know to become His child and to walk properly in His sight! To walk as children of light we are instructed to “find out what is acceptable to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8-10), to walk in wisdom we are told to “understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesiasn5:17), we do this by reading and studying His Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17)!  God has given us His Word! It is our responsibility to read, understand, and obey it!  

When we believe what we hear – take God at His word – we will obey Him; in obeying His commands we will come to understand that every instruction He gives us is only ever for our good, that His way is the BEST way!

God has given us His word. Do you wholly trust Him? You can! Not one word of God’s has failed - Jesus has not failed (John 17:4, 19:28-30) and neither has His written word (Isaiah 55:11, 1 Peter 1:22-25, Hebrews 4:12)! God has given us His word, it is up to us to trust Him enough to listen and obey!

You can do it! So can I!!

Trusting in God

   “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him!" Psalm 34:8 NKJV

    From the beginning of time God has asked His people to trust Him; trust in His boundaries, trust in His provisions.

• Noah and his family trusted God enough to prepare the ark and trusted Him when He divinely sealed them into the ark as the flood waters rose around it (Genesis 6:13-8:22, Hebrews 11:7).
•  Abram & Sarai and their nephew Lot trusted God when they left all to go to Canaan (Genesis 12:1-5, Hebrews 11:8). Abram trusted God when He was told to sacrifice his son, Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19, Hebrews 11:17-19)
• Joseph trusted in God when his brothers sold him into slavery (Genesis 37 and 39)
  
• Jochebed trusted God when she placed her 3 month old son in the prepared basket and set him afloat in the river near Pharaoh’s palace (Exodus 1)    
• Moses trusted God when he left Pharaoh’s palace to live with his own people and when God chose him to led His people out of Egyptian bondage and toward the Promised Land (Hebrews 11:24-29, Exodus 14-15)
• Rahab trusted God when she gathered her family into her house and tied the red cord in the window while her city was conquered (Joshua 2 and 6)
• David trusted God when, having to choose between three punishments, he chose the one that would put them into God’s hand because David was confident of God’s mercy (2 Samuel 24:10-16)
• Hezekiah trusted in God when Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, threatened (2 Kings 19)
• Job trusted in God even when his health, livelihood, and children were taken from him in one day (Job 1:1-2:10)
• Ezekiel trusted even his wife died and he could not openly mourn his loss (Ezekiel 24:15-27)
• Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego trusted God when they were put into the fiery furnace (Daniel 3:8-30) and Daniel trusted God when he was lowered into the lion’s den (Daniel 6:1-28)
• Jonah trusted God when he told the sailors to throw him overboard into the raging sea (Jonah 1-2)
• Habakkuk trusted in God, come what may (Habakkuk 3:17-18)
• Simeon trusted God that he would see Jesus, the Consolation of Israel, in his lifetime (Luke 2:25-35)
• Peter trusted God when he stepped out of the fishing boat into the wave-tossed sea (Matthew 14:22-30)
• Jesus trusted God to be the Righteous Judge, knowing all that Jesus endured (1 Peter 2:22-23)
• Saul/Paul trusted God when his sins were forgiven him, but he let the remembrance of them spur him on to obedience (Acts 9:1-22, 1 Timothy 1:12-17)

    This is a small list, but gives us a good cross-section of people who have trusted God (read Hebrews 11 for another listing, read the whole Bible for the best list of all!) We are thankful that these are recorded for us, to encourage us to keep pressing forward, to help us exchange our fears for faith, so that our faith can flourish!

    If the highlights of your life were recorded what would be said about you? How would this statement be finished?

“I trusted God when _________________________________________________________”