Trust

“How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust”  Psalm 40:4 

Trust – Hebrew batah. The word means the sense of well-being and security that results from having something or someone in whom to place confidence.  It is translated in the Greek Old Testament as “hope”, not “belief”.  It stresses the feeling of being safe and secure rather than the intellectual and volitional act in response to revelation.  It means to live at ease because of confidence in God. 

Those who trust in God alone will be delivered from their enemies (Ps. 22:4), their prayers will be answered (I Chr. 5:20), they will walk in straight paths (Prov. 3:5), will be given joy and gladness (Ps. 16:9 and 33:21), will know inner peace and absence of fear (Ps. 4:8 and Isa. 26:3).  The cause for our trust in God’s promises is not based on what we have done or can do.  Trusting in God’s promises does not depend on how worthy I am to receive anything from Him.  It is based solely on the unswerving loyalty of God’s gracious kindness. 

The hope in God is not a wish fulfillment but a confident expectation.  God’s chief characteristic is His faithfulness and trustworthiness (Deut. 33:28, Ps. 27:3).  These characteristics show themselves most clearly to a believer who recognizes that he is utterly without personal resources.  The believer must trust completely on a gracious and dependable God.  Putting one’s confidence in anything but the sovereign God is complete foolishness.  In the Bible, there is a long list of false grounds for security.  In particular, the Bible heaps scorn upon those who live in complacency, never having evaluated the flimsy basis for such complacency (Isa. 32:9-11, Ezk. 30:9, Amos 6:1). 

This is a very serious word for a Christian.  We often say that we trust God, but our actions deny these claims.  Recovery begins when we honestly examine our lives and commit ourselves to do something about what we find.  A fearless inventory of our behavior usually reveals that we are still trying to take care of things by ourselves.  We really don’t think God is reliable in every area of life.  That is not trust.  Trust says, “God, you are able.  I put all my eggs in your basket.  I’ll do whatever you want me to do, but unless you come through for me, I’m finished”.   Start today.  Pick the one thing that you have tried over and over to fix in your life but nothing happens.  Decide to trust.

Do your actions show that you trust God, or is “trust” just another word in your religious vocabulary?

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