IF YOU KNOW HIM, YOU WILL TRUST HIM
By Pastor Chinedu Emmanuel
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil.” Proverbs 3:5-7
Trusting the Lord with all your heart, means that you first of all believe that God is who He says He is. When you trust in the word of God, you are testifying that God is real and true.
John 3:32 “And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. 33 He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true. 34 For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure.”
This is the starting point of trusting in the Lord with all thy heart. Heb 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” You cannot trust in God until you realize that He is real. This is the basis of true worship. John 4:22 “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.” This is why unbelievers cant trust God or worship Him. They cannot perceive His reality or existence.
Ephesians 4:17-19 “So with the wisdom given to me from the Lord I say: You should not live like the unbelievers around you who walk in their empty delusions. Their corrupted logic has been clouded because their hearts are so far from God—their blinded understanding and deep-seated moral darkness keeps them from the true knowledge of God. Because of spiritual apathy, they surrender their lives to lewdness, impurity, and sexual obsession.”
WHO IS GOD?
- God is love. Through the unmerited gift God gave us in Christ Jesus, we can see that God is love truly and so we can trust Him.
1 John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.KJV
Rom 5:6 “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”
God made us righteous. He atoned for all our sins to make us righteous before Him. This shows how good God is, how unusual and unique His love is.
Rom 3:23 “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. 24 Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. 25 For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past.”
2 Cor 5:21 “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
- God is a spirit. He is not a man. Therefore, He doesn’t behave, think or see like men. we cannot measure His love against the fickle love of men. His faithfulness is not like that of men, He can be trusted!
John 4:24 “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”
Isa 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
1 Sam 16:7 “But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.”
- Jesus introduced God to us in a way nobody else ever did. God is our Father. He is a Father to only those that accept Him through Christ Jesus. But, God wont be a Father to those who reject Him because He will never go against their personal will.
John 1:10 “He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.”
John 20:17 “Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.”
Heb 12:9 “Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?”
God is called the “Father of Spirits” because when we came to Christ we were born again of His spirit and not of men as stated in the above verse.
We can call Him dear father, my dear father.
Matt 6:9 “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”
Rom 8:15 “So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”
- God is light and there is no darkness, sin or evil in Him at all. Therefore, it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we can trust Him with all our hearts.
1 John 1:5 “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
Heb 6:18 “That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us”
- When we receive Christ Jesus by faith, our spiritual eye is opened. The Holy Spirit begins to reveal to us who God is through our growing knowledge of Christ. This makes trusting God easier.
Acts 26:18 “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.”
1 Cor 2: 12 “And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.13 When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.”
- Since God is a spirit, we can only know Him by the revelation of the Holy Spirit and not by our human reasoning.
Matt 16:15 “He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”
WHAT ARE OTHER WAYS THE HOLY SPIRIT REVEALS GOD TO US?
- Study and meditate on the scriptures daily.
2 Tim 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
Col 2: 7 “Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”
Phil 3: 10 “I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death.”
- Allow yourself to be taught about Christ by people(Sunday School teachers, Life Center leaders, pastors etc.) God has put in the position to teach you. Make sure you attend a church where scriptures are taught and the focus is on Christ. Knowing Christ is the primary purpose of going to church. As you get to know Christ, you’ll learn to put all your faith in Him alone and become a vessel through which He manifests His life and presence.
Eph 4:11 “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth.”
2 Tim 3:14 “But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you. 15 You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.”
- Be attentive to the Holy Sprit, genuinely desire to know Him more and pray for Him to open your eyes of understanding.
Luke 24:45 “Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures.”
Acts 16:14 “And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.”
- Practice what you already know about Him. The proof of listening is in doing. Listen and do!
Luke 8:18 “So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them.” NLT
TRANSFORMED LIFE
- We were created to be like Christ. Christ’s life is in us. As we grow in our knowledge of him, his life will manifest more and more in us.
Col 1:9 “So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.”
- Transformation does not come by learning the laws. It comes by knowing who Jesus is. Since we are created to be like Him, knowing Him means knowing ourselves, what we can do and all we have through Him.
Rom 12:1 “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
Pastor Chinedu Emmanuel is the Senior Pastor at Fountain of The Living Word Church, New Jersey.
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