TRUST AND  OBEDIENCE

We often hear about and talk about things like grace and faith. We stress that through Jesus Christ’s blood we have redemption. We preach that repentance and forgiving are necessary in order to receive forgiveness. We know that if we are Christians that we need to “live right.” While acceptance of all of these things require a degree of trust and obedience, we rarely hear that our life is not our own and to totally surrender to God’s will requires a degree of trust and obedience not commonly seen. That degree of trust and obedience would change the world! To further weigh the importance of trust and obedience I have incorporated parts of an article I wrote in 2011 and an experience I had more recently.

Since Jesus knew that we could never fully understand how to trust Him, He used little children and their humility to show us how we must become. Matthew 19:14 For years I took that analogy to be about humility only; for as a child is humble in the presence of its parents and others—at least they were in Jesus’ day—we should be humble. While that may not be a natural thing for adults, His presence, and the magnitude and our lack of perception of the rules and laws of God intimidates us—as children are intimidated by their parents.  It is important to be humble; I Peter 5:6 but I don’t believe that is totally what He was trying to convey to us in this scripture. He could also mean that we should easily forgive others.

While small children may hurt their friends both verbally and physically, often a few minutes later they are again interacting as if all is forgiven and forgotten—usually it has been forgiven and forgotten. We know that unless we forgive others we will not be forgiven. Jesus made this clear when He taught His disciples how to pray and it is mentioned in several other places in scripture. Matthew 6:14-15

Again, I do not believe that humility and forgiveness are the only lessons here. Since all of the Word of God has deep meanings, there is another depth that we can explore. I believe the most important lesson for me in this part of scripture is to simply learn to trust Him as a little child trusts its parents—to “jump” into His arms if he says jump, to trust all that He says in scripture, to trust Him in everything as a child trusts his father. Obedience will come if at first there is trust. Proverbs 3:5 & I Peter 1:14

One of the things I have often wondered about is the reason or reasons that in this modern day we don’t seem to have the miracles of Jesus’ day. I know we still have miracles; but many still need a miracle. I have searched the scriptures for some answers. I know that His Word has the answers; but still I haven’t found all that I am looking for. One of the things I did find was that when Jesus was present and when they brought the sick and demon possessed to Him, He often healed them all. Matthew 12:15 Further, when Jesus sent the disciples out two by two and commanded them to heal the sick and to cast out devils—they came back rejoicing because even the devils obeyed them. Luke 10:17 All of this was before they were Spirit filled. Judas’ betrayal and Peter’s denial of Jesus were still in the future; and it was before Thomas’ doubt was removed. I know that we live in a different day; but I still do not  fully understand the difference between then and now as far as miracles are concerned; but a key used by His disciples seems to be their trust and obedience. Remember Peter cast his net again at Jesus’ Word even though he was tired of fishing. John 21:6 It seems from scripture that the disciples usually obeyed Jesus’ Word without questions or thoughts; but I needed more!

On January 22nd of 2011 as I lay thinking about these things I received some clarity. I believe it started as a lucid dream and the dream never was really vivid. In fact all of the visual part of it was pretty vague. But I cannot get that conversation out of my mind. In my dream it seems that I was talking to Jesus about this question of modern day miracles at a meeting—the kind of meeting and the place were not clear. It could have been a church or another type of gathering. I do not know; but while we were talking a man with a large bag on his shoulder, a bag like a homeless person might carry, came into the middle of the gathering and threw the bag on the floor. Then he totally disrupted the meeting by shouting out. Jesus seemed to say to me, “I told him to do this.”  While initially it seemed that this was a totally unnecessary action by the man, the result was that many were healed and a lot of good things were done. Then it came to me—this is the key, blind and unquestioned  trust and obedience to Jesus’ voice, to His will and to His commands. We must not use the human filter of “what might everyone think.” Could it be that when we hear His voice we use so many human mind filters until what He says is lost? Humans have saved other humans from tragedy because they gave a short command and it was obeyed without any mind filtering. Others who were subjected to tragedy were injured or died because in their minds, at least, they wanted to know “why” the command was given. Their hesitation led to real tragedy. Tragedy preventing obedience requires blind trust and instant obedience. Trust is the first key to doing something that is not normal for us to do.

Ultimate trust is totally depending on God to do His work when we are obedient regardless of what the consequences may be or what people may think. Psalm 37:5 But this was not the end of my dream. It seems that I then had the courage to do what this man had done but at a different meeting. I did about the same thing that man had done with the same result; but I was enjoying not only the good that was being done but also the accolades that people were giving me. In His still quite voice He seemed to say to me. “That’s another reason I don’t do these works today that I once did. Man will not give Me all of My praise. Then I remembered that in His Word it is noted that after Jesus performed a miracle that “…and they glorified God, who had given such authority   to men” Matthew 9:8

So I believe that this is it. We don’t really trust God as we should. We do not hear and obey like we should. We are too encumbered with the things of man and too concerned with what man might think. As the rich young ruler knew, we know too, when God speaks truth to us we have to make the commitment to do what he says or walk sorrowfully away. Mark 10:22 It takes a tremendous amount of trust and courage to do exactly what God asks us to do when it causes us to advance out of our comfort zone. Think about it, if God asked you to interrupt a church meeting, a city council meeting, or a big meeting of any kind to heal someone or to announce His judgment or to do anything that God might ask you to do, would you do it? Or would you say— I am not sure that this is what God wants me to do. It is so unordinary it might offend some important person. God doesn’t tell people to do these types of things—does He? Would you be obedient or would we try to justify with a logical reason, mind filters, not to do His will?

Until we get to the place where we know the voice of God—and then trustingly, obediently, courageously and quickly do as He asks and then meticulously and carefully make sure that God gets His due praise, we will not see the miracles that we could see.  We need to trust Him and be obedient then give Him all of the praise!  I am not there yet; but I pray that I get there soon. Now that I think about it, the answer was hidden in plain sight in His Word—remember the trust that a child has in its parents?  Lord help me to courageously trustingly and obediently do what You ask without question or hesitation or reservation. Then help me Lord to say, “Look! See what my Father did!” But I still seem to have a problem, like many, with doing even simple things!

On April the 16th of 2023 we visited Canaanland Pentecostal Church. Brother Clark was preaching about giving God praise. He said, “It is a command to praise the Lord,” then he paused for a moment. I felt in my spirit that I should immediately arise—raise my hand and shout “Praise the Lord.” But I did not. Again I failed to be obedient to the Holy Spirit. I know that God only requires the obedience of a few to show that he is a mighty God. While God can do anything and everything, he desires that man participates. He will make known to us what he desires. All we need to do is trust Him and obey Him!

I believe that I trust God and His Word; but I need to demonstrate that trust by blindly and without hesitation or question obey His voice! With His help I will get there

The scripture used in this essay is from the ESV version unless specifically noted!

Written April 24, 2023

By Mallard E. Guy Jr.