"Don't Be No Fool!"

Blog - March 26, 2014

Don't Be No Fool!
A Lesson on Trust
Notes from Jump Start on March 23, 2014


"Trust God; Love men." ~ Mike Murdock

"He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered." Proverbs 28:26

Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

The above quote by Dr. Murdock is a great take on the focus as to where trust should be allocated. We should trust God with our lives, but the reality is "we trust men and love God." We believe everything folks say, many times without checking it out for ourselves.

The Psalms and Proverbs has many excellent passages that directs us to God and away from man regarding trust.  "It is better to trust in The Lord." "Put not your trust in princes." "Trust in The Lord with all thine heart." "He that trusted in his own heart is a fool."  ALL of these are in the scriptures.  What do we do though? We trust and rely on everyone else but God.

Before we go further into the lesson, let's define trust and explain how we get to trust an individual.

Trust means to rely on the integrity, ability, strength and surety of a person.  It simply means to have confidence in the one in whom you believe will act according to why you believed them initially.  It means to have confident expectancy with a "knowing" that what has been promised must happen accordingly.  In Hebrew, the word trust means to flee for refuge and protection towards confidence and to have hope.

The way that most of us get into "trusting" relationships is through getting to know the person in whom we are trusting.  Trust should not be easily entered into.  One becomes deserving of our trust when three things exists:

1. Relationship - getting to know someone intimately.
2. Character - demonstrated ability to have integrity, and to be consistent and just.
3. Track Record - noted times when a person has been consistently reliable.

We all know that these three items rarely co-exist in human affairs.  This is why the scripture is adamant about where we should place our trust, that is, where we go to for refuge, rest and confidence.  It's definitely not man! Psalm 118:8-9 says, "don't trust in princes" (government or politicians.) Proverbs 3:5-6 says, "don't lean to your own understanding" (yourself and your abilities). Psalm 146:3 says, "don't put your trust in man" (your friends, family and neighbors.). Wisdom calls us to put our complete reliance on God and brings us be be led solely by Him.

Yes, we do need people.  We can receive wise counsel from our friends, but to place the type of dependence on man that belongs to God is foolish.  We can count the times that man has let us down.  Sometimes they are too numerous to count, but we don't need to live life as skeptics. Many of us forget to or choose not to count the times that we haven't been true to ourselves.  These times are numerous as well.  You know those times, right?  Remember when you said, "I'm going to lose 10 pounds this year." Or, "I'm going to save money this year."  Just think of those times that you have not been trustworthy with yourself because your track record is consistently in the negative. This is not to bring you to depression, rather, it is to bring you to the end of yourself and your efforts.  The only ONE who is WORTHY of complete trust is God.  Our job is to become acquainted with His character and check His track record and discover how faithful He has been.

In closing, the way to walking wisely and to avoid "foolery" is summed up in Proverbs 3:6.  "In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths."  It is His pleasure to lead you into paths of righteousness; it's for His names sake.


I pray that you take the rest of this week to discover how trustworthy your Heavenly Father is and learn to allocate trust to the right people, institutions and places.

His Image Manifested hosts a weekly prayer conference call entitled, "Jump Start" designed to give you a boost for your week. You may call in every Sunday at 6:00 PM EST at 530-881-1212, Pin#:545-495-056.  I hope to hear you on the call.

Check out my new website at www.hisimagemanifested.org. You can get to the blogs, and podcasts from this website. You can also see where we have been and what we are doing. If you want to go directly to the podcast, click on Joslyn's Podcast to hear the messages from the bible studies and the Jumpstart prayer conference calls.


In HIM,

Jos

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