Trust in the Lord: by James Lantz

       Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. God’s ability to save, deliver, protect, heal and to prosper is far greater than we can ask or think! Our understanding is usually based on what we feel and see and what we have been exposed to. We are not to base our trust in God on the limitations of the flesh, our own abilities, nor any advantages that we may have. Our trust is to be in God and in his goodness and willingness to use his mighty power on our behalf.  Eph. 1:18 – 20  The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly.  Jesus said, have faith in God! Placing our faith and total trust in God will bring us victory! God will pass over eleven thousand people who have not trusted in him to bring you whatever you may need. Sometimes it helps to understand what something is by understanding what it is not. Trusting in God is not trusting in your own ideas, your own strenght, your ability to make money, how much money you have, or medicine and the Doctor’s skill. Trusting in God is not trusting in our president, our government nor our military might. 1 Sam. 14:6  .  .  .  for there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few.  God is not going to deliver us if we are trusting something or someone other than him. Why should he be God to us if something or someone else is our god.  Psalms 147:10  He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.  Jer. 17: 5&6 AMP.  Thus says the Lord: Cursed (with great evil) is the strong man who trusts and relies on frail man, making weak (human) flesh his arm, and whose mind and heart turn aside from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub or a person naked and destitute in the desert, and shall not see any good come; but shall dwell in the parched places in the wilderness, in uninhabited salt land.  This is strong language, but I am sure the Lord said it this way so that everyone who wants to enjoy the benefits of the blessing will know what to avoid. The Lord has already stated that the curse would come on those who refuse to serve him with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all (See Deut. 28:47). We know that faith pleases God. Jesus commented on the centurion’s faith, I have not seen this great of faith in all of Israel. You do not read of Jesus ever commenting on how beautiful a gal may be, nor how big someone muscles are, but Jesus did notice peoples faith. One day Jesus was watching people give offerings in the temple, and he commented to his disciples that the poor widow woman who only gave two mites had actually given more than the rich because she gave all that she had. When someone trust in the Lord it gets his attention.  Ps. 147:11  The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.  I have noticed that people who have no faith do not recognize when something good is right in front of their eyes. Referring back to what the Lord said through Jeremiah, the destitute person who was experiencing extreme lack didn’t have a clue that something good was right in front of his eyes. So many people have their eyes on what they don’t have and refuse to look at what the Lord is offering them. The children of Israel that were bitten by the poisonous snakes had to take their eyes off of the snake bite and look up to the serpent on the pole. The sick today who want to receive the Lord’s provision of healing are going to have to quit looking at their symptons and look at Jesus (the Word). Many, like the ten lepers, are going to receive their healing as they go about doing what God said. Some sit through the offering scriptures and hear, the more you sow the more you will reap, and they sow nothing. Why don’t they believe what God say’s in his word.  Isaiah 7: 9 .  .  .  If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.  Perhaps they are not sowing because they are believing more in what they are experienceing in the desert than in God’s supernatural supply.  Jer. 17:7& 8  Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.  The person who is trusting God is not even noticing when the heat is on and just continues to bear fruit because of God’s river of supply. The prophet continues on, telling how God looks at our heart and rewards us accordingly. He even answers the question why some lose their riches in the middle of their life and why some lose their mind in their latter years. A careful study of God’s word reveals how God’s people of old have trusted God or failed to trust him. David was a man after God’s own heart and never lost a battle because he inquired of the Lord. David believed God when he took out the giant and the host of the philistines. David trusted God to exalt him to be King over Israel, refusing to take King Saul’s life. When David was King, he asked that the ark of the covenant be brought to the city of David. It was transported on a new ox cart and when Uzza reached out his hand to steady the ark the Lord smote him. David was afraid of God that day, saying, how shall I bring the ark of God home to me? David left the ark of God at the home of Obededom and the Lord blessed his home. After finding in the word the proper way to transport the ark, David had it brought home on the backs of the priests.  1 Chron. 15:13 For because ye did it not at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after the due order.  When we follow the due order of how God say’s to do things we will experience the blessings of the Lord in our life. I trust you are hearing what the Lord is saying to us. When we trust and obey there is blessing for us!  Pro. 26:2  As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.  David humbled himself and submitted to the way God instructed for the annointing to be carried and God continued to bless him. Let us submit to God’s order of handling the annointing and see what great things he will do! There is divine order of how things are to be done in the kingdom of God. Fully leave the kingdom of darkness and fully embrace the kingdom of God’s dear Son. Jesus preached repentance and the kingdom of God. We enter the kingdom of God by faith and we continue to walk by faith. Jesus preached the blessing (Mt.5)! Blessed are the poor in spirit (those who recognize their need of salvation), blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek (those who will put God’s word and will above their own), for they shall inherit the earth. Jesus goes on to preach you can only have one master, you can not serve God and money. If our decision’s are made only according to how it affects us finacially we have made money our god. Jesus expounds on the fact that we are not to worry about our life and the things that we need.  Mt. 6:25  Therefore I say unto you,Take no thought (anxious thought) for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than rainment?   The Lord goes on to exhort us that the birds don’t sow or reap or store things up for the winter yet God feeds them. Then he goes on to say that the Father made the lilies and they did not toil to make themselves look good, yet they are more beautiful than king Solomon in his glory. Then Jesus said that the Father made the flowers so beautiful and they only last a short time, shall he not much more clothe you. All the while Jesus is emphasizing how much more important we are to the Father than the birds and the flowers. Jesus is telling us that things work differently in the kingdom of God than they do in the kingdom of darkness. Do you remember reading how God wanted to take his people into the promised land flowing with milk and honey and give them houses they did not build and vineyards they did not plant. That is a type of the kingdom of God where he provides for his children. Until we embrace this kingdom mindset of a loving heavenly Father providing for us as we put his agenda first we will be ineffective in God’s kingdom.  Mt. 6:31-34  Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek: for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof .  Every sermon Jesus preached was to bring people to the Father and to show His love for us. Jesus told the parable about the father who had two sons and how the younger son wanted his inheritance now before the death of his father. The very wise and rich father divided the inheritance up and gave a part to each son. The younger son soon left home because he wanted to party and have a high time. After the passing of time there arose a famine in the land, and about that time the younger son ran out of money and then his friends (so called friends) left him. The only job he could land was feeding pigs and it didn’t even pay enough to buy food. One day he came to himself, I will go home and say to my father, I have sinned against heaven and against you and am not worthy to be called your son. Will you allow me to work for you as one of the servants? The father saw his son while he was a great way off and had compassion on him and ran to him and kissed him. The youger son said to his father, I have sinned and am not worthy to be called your son. The father restored the son to his place as a son, he said to the servants, bring the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. Kill the fatted calf, let us eat and be merry, for this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found. So the party began and the older brother would not come to the party. Father goes out to see his older son and entreats him to come and celebrate his brother’s repentance and homecoming. The older son was angry because he had stayed home and worked for his father all these years and never had a party, but the waster gets the royal, roll out the red carpet treatment.  Luke 15:31&32   And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. (In other words, you could have had a party any time you wanted one.) It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.  This father portrays our heavenly Father and how things work in the kingdom of God. There is love, inheritance, faith, compassion, forgiveness, restoration, celebration, mercy, enlightenment, and no favoritism shown to the children. The older brother had a works mentality that he had earned what the father had given him, in reality he was given much more than he earned. In the kingdom of God everything we have is a gift because of God’s grace. If we were to get what we deserve we would go to hell. What God has granted by grace must be received by faith.  2 Chron. 20:20  Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.