We say we trust God, but do we in full? There are facets of our lives that we trust to God, but there are other areas deemed and marked off-limits to Him. Don’t lie. It’s true. We say we want to but we really don’t, because there is a lack of faith in our lives that affects the level of trust we give to God. In those areas we are feeling blessed, yes, we give it all to God to have and to keep giving. The areas we are weak in are the parts of our lives we want the door to remain shut to God.

Jeremiah 17:7 says, “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.” We look at a verse like this and tell ourselves we want to live like this. It is a good concept to trust in the Lord, but words versus practice is different. We read this verse and think how easy it is, but to apply this line of thought to our lives is something quite hard to do. We can tell ourselves we do, but there are parts of our lives that we do not. Each person is different in this and each situation is unique, but there are parts of self that cannot let go and trust God with everything.

It may be our relationships, it may be our occupation, or it can be finances. Regardless, there are strongholds in our lives that make it difficult for us to trust God with handling and leading us. We give lip service to saying we do but, in our heart of hearts, we pause in our trust and give up only a little bit or nothing to God. When we face a hard situation, we want to give it to God, but our trust can be weak and no godly resolution will be found.

Look at finances. How much debt do you have? Are you drowning with just the tip of your nose out of the water of financial ruin? Are you spending more than you have? Are you a paycheck junkie, living paycheck to paycheck? Are you scared to let go of your finances and trust God to lead you away from the burden of debt? Probably. Our pocketbooks are most likely the biggest stronghold to trust in God about.

It is about needs and wants with finances. We live in a society begging us to spend more to have the newest designer clothing or the most current cell phone. We are bombarded with messages in the world to have and have and to get and get, that we deserve to have the best of the best and nothing less.  We put our trust in what the world says we need instead of what God says we need.

In Matthew 6:26 Jesus tells us to, “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” Yet, we want more than this. We feed our insatiable appetites with stuff we do not need. When we get more bills than our paycheck can handle, we cry out to God. But what is this cry? Is it to help us manage our money better? No, it is usually to bless us with a better paying job or a raise at work so we can keep consuming. The most important lack is the trust in God to guide us to financial stability.

The strongholds do not only include finances; it can be anything. When it comes down to it, though, trust in God and trusting God is that of an attitude. What is the attitude we hold? It is that of selfishness we have in our hearts. After the fall of Adam and Eve, part of our rebellious natures is that of being selfish. We do not want God involved in certain parts of our lives that we want to hold on to. People love themselves, and trusting in God in all aspects of life means putting aside self for God and His true desires for us to live by. His desire for us is to not live for self but to live for Him.

How does one trust God? How does one let go of self and give it all to God? It is by faith. Faith that God is the Creator of the universe. Faith that God sent His Son to die for us on a cross for our sins. Faith that if we let God lead us in every aspect of our lives each day, we will be okay.

Faith and trust work in tandem. Without faith, there can be no trust, and visa-versa. There needs to be an unrelenting faith that God will be there for us. He will not abandon us. We are told this in Deuteronomy 31:8, “And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.” This does not say in only certain situations or only sometimes, but the verse says He will not leave or forsake us. This doesn’t mean life will be easy when we throw our full trust in Him, but He will be with us nonetheless.

Think back to a time when dire straits were consuming every atom in your life – when you tried and failed over and over again by doing it your way, and you finally really and truly cried out to God and put your trust in Him. Did he abandon you? Were you forsaken? When you trusted and handed it over to God, what happened? He showed you a way out. It may not have been an easy way out or they way you wanted to go, but it was there. If you grabbed hold of God and followed Him, things worked out. If you did not, your problems continued to go awry, right?

How easy it is to forget these moments of complete trust. The moments are glorious to us and put us in awe of God, but the trust we had passes as quickly as it came, and we move back to trusting ourselves or others in our daily lives when trials and tribulations arise. It seems as if we practice a circular behavior of no trust, trust, and then back to no trust. We angst and stress because our memories are short on the works God does in our lives when trust was handed to Him in full.

Our problem is we give our trust not only in ourselves, but in the world at large. We trust books other than the Bible for answers. We trust friends and strangers with our issues for problem solving. True trust is in God, and God only. Yes, God can and will work through others to help us, but the trust of man should not be first and foremost. When we trust in God and He uses others to help, He will lead us to assurance of this. If not, the help we receive from the world will be short-term or nil.

Trusting God is the most important aspect of our faith that we can have to live in this fallen world. No matter what trials, no matter what concerns, or what tribulations we face, we need to have trust in God that He will guide us and see us through to the other side of our problems. If we can hand over complete trust to God and give up self, our faith will not only grow but it will be unshakeable.

johnflysaught@gmail.com.

2 Timothy 3:1-5 (KJV) “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”

I assume you read this verse. Great, read it again and soak it in. Look around your lives, and I gander there are more people you know who fit this description than don’t. Think of work, neighbors, friends, and yes, even some at your church. We are pretty much surrounded by selfish people. They think only of themselves and won’t give a second thought to stepping on others to get what they want. They are never satisfied and are always hungry for more stuff, more prestige, and whatever else they want.

The only thing they don’t want is Jesus. Nope, not Him… too boring, no fun, handcuffed to “rules,” and is completely opposite of what they want – themselves and only themselves. They don’t know the freedom Jesus has to offer.

I know people like this, just as you do. It is hard to swallow to know that because you are a follower of Christ and are not unscrupulous in your ways. It would be easy to set aside Christian morals and values because it seems to be the only way to get ahead in life, but we don’t. We don’t because we have a bigger picture of the grand scheme of eternity. People take advantage of us because we are not selfish. We are giving and caring. We put others’ needs before our own. The selfish people think we are weak, but we are quite opposite. We are strong. Only weak people take the easy way out, and that is to be selfish.

I’ve been on the dirty end of a poopy pole from those who are selfish. It hurts. It made me angry. It wanted me to have revenge in some way. I cursed those who did me wrong in my head. But you know what? I didn’t do any of that because that is not how we are to operate as followers of Jesus. We are to be patient and kind. We are to give our enemies the clothes off our backs. We are to pray for them. Why? Because justice will be God’s, not ours.

When people act out in selfish ways towards us, we are told to turn the other cheek, but that is hard. It is easier to turn our fist to their face, but that wouldn’t do any good except get us fired or thrown in jail. We want revenge because we were wronged. It is easy to explode with a barrage of hateful words or to take unethical actions, but we don’t. We are better than the selfish ones. We are on the straight and narrow path to glory while they are on the wide and dark path to hell.

Before I knew Christ, much like I suppose you were too, I was selfish. If it wasn’t about me, it didn’t matter. I was number one in my eyes, and I believed I should be in everyone else’s as well.  Even if I was wrong, I was right; and if I were right, I was supremely right. To hell with others because it was about me and my wants and desires and no one else’s. Even when I was a new Christian, it took me awhile to learn it wasn’t about me but about Christ and others.

Before I was saved, I had morals and values, as long as they fit my agenda for myself that particular day.  If I felt it was good for me, it was a good moral and value. If someone was against me, they were immoral. It was simple; I was the center of my universe, and that was the problem. I lived in my own imaginary world where everyone was serving my purpose and my will.

Only as I began growing in Christ did this all change. Only when I took myself out of the extended equation of my life did I realize that my life was not mine, but Christ’s. I mattered to God, yes, but not in a selfish way. Selfishly, I would think God serves me, but in reality, I am to serve Him.

When we come to and grow in Christ, our selfish desires dwindle as Christ increases in our life. Selfish actions fade, and Christ gets brighter when we give up self. This means we must deny ourselves and embrace the life Christ wants from us as described in 2 Corinthians 5:15, “And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.” Denying ourselves is the hard part because of our fallen and selfish nature.

Look at society. Look around you, and you see that Satan has morphed society to be self-centered. Ads on television, radio, internet, and published media all point to the need to satisfy our selfish and worldly desires. I don’t see ads that say give up material goods for Christ. It is always the opposite tale to get us to be slaves to debt to get what “we deserve” in life. Satisfying our selfish desires is what society wants to drive us; and if we fall victim to living for selfish ends, we are trading our relationship with Jesus for the world.

We can overcome though, but it takes effort on our part. We need to be able to peel the veil off our eyes and see the world for what it really is – about pleasing self. Period. Once we recognize and have a mindset of knowing what the world wants us to believe and have, we can begin discerning what is good for us and what is harming us.

In Luke 9:23 Jesus says, “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” It isn’t following Him only on Sunday mornings or when it is convenient for us, or as a quid pro quo relationship. No, this is a daily occurrence and effort on our part. Each day we need to remind ourselves of this through the renewing of our minds. Otherwise, we will fall back into our old habits of pleasing and doing for self those things that oppose taking up our crosses each day. We can’t pick and choose when to follow Jesus. We can’t put Him aside in parts of our lives when we want to serve self.

The above verse says to do this daily. Daily means all day, each day. When we do this each day, we can be immune to the temptations the world has to offer us to satisfy self. We instead will want to only serve Christ in lieu of self. We will always be tempted; therefore, by renewing our minds each day in Christ, we will less likely drop our guards down. If we do fail at one point or another, we can learn from the mistake by repenting, not repeating, and picking up our cross again to serve Jesus.

Selfishness is a battle we must each face. We are each uniquely challenged by Satan and the world to give up Christ to satisfy self. We must battle these temptations through the strength Christ provides us and through our efforts to consciously avoid those things that we know can tempt us to please self.  When we do this, we will live fully for Christ and not ourselves; and not only will our lives change, but the light and example we provide will draw others to us and ultimately to Jesus.

johnflysaught@gmail.com