Trusting the Goodness of God

Trusting the goodness of God is one of the great challenges in life. In scripture Peter felt fear and faltered.

Much focus on faltering in preaching is on Peter, but all the disciples faltered to a degree. Often we try to place ourselves higher than the apostles.

They had doubts and faltered at times. Trusting God is hard because life is hard.

Trusting God is an element of faith that is not normal for fallen people. God is on our side.

Being honest about our shortcomings allows us to grow. If we struggle at times to trust God we can take comfort that God knows our nature.

God calls those with doubts and struggles into the fellowship and comfort of eternal fellowship with himself.

Faith (Poem)

Faith.
Trusting in God.
Whatever comes our way.
Finding joy in fellowship with God.
Trusting always that God is for us always.
Looking to the eternal whatever today brings.
Or does not bring.

Faith Belief and Trust

Faith has an element of uncertainty in it. A lot of western theology has had an issue with an uncertainty within faith.

The move often seems to place faith in the category of knowledge. There is some truth in this movement, but the bible always insists that the righteous will live by faith.

You see it makes no sense that the righteous live by faith if there is not an element of trust and need for belief that continues through the Christian life.

If someone in our church said in a prayer to God, "Lord I believe help my unbelief" churches would scoff. You see through the bible in the psalms of David and the great men and women of faith this sense of unbelief mixed with belief.

You see we have gone too far in our understanding of what is possible in the Christian life. To be a Christian is to continue to believe when things to not make sense and the chips seem down.

God is a good who delights in doing things his way. Sometimes he will send 300 men to win a battle when he could have sent 10,000. Sometimes he would prefer to get people where they should be in ways in which they do not like.

You see we always put God in a box and expect him to think as we think as if we think in a way which is good. We are always small and cannot see that we have no idea of how small we are.

Sin is always mixed though the Christian life. We always face unbelief and uncertainty. You see we see "through a glass dimly" as the Apostle Paul wrote.

The word of the Lord often comes in a still small voice. Sometimes the word of the lord is sent by unbelieving and wicked people to us.

But always God speaks and is there and supports our faith. You see he will not show us everything because it is not good for us. But he will always show us what we need to know and when we need to know it.

God has made many promises for his people in his word. These particularly take faith. Really we say has God kept his promises.

Sometimes I will doubt that God has kept his promises. You see life is hard and God has surely broken this promise in his word. But then I will reflect and see that God has not broken his promise at all and much of my hardship has simply been my weak faith.

You see faith often eases suffering because we trust that God has a plan and his provision or lack of provision has a reason. You see we don't trust that God knows what he is doing.

That is one crux of suffering is that unbelief increases suffering. Of course suffering is real the world is fallen and people suffer who have strong faith. But faith makes suffering more bearable as it happens.

Those who beliefs do suffer but the belief places the suffering into the context. The context is eternity and the eternity is eternity with God.

We should maybe thing of eternity like this if we had eternity to sit in the presence of Jesus at a table eating dinner with him would this make us happy?

You see it should because heaven is not about some sort of retirement vacation where we have maxed our 401K into an insane level and have more money than we could ever need.

Is suspect these things are true. The world is good and heaven is the world perfected but you see it is more it is relation with God and seeing God face to face.

It is the end of faith. Faith ends in the last day and is replaced by knowledge where we see God face to face. This knowledge is of course partial and incomplete.

You see we shall never see God fully only see him more and more each day. So the joy of heaven is always increasing as we learn more and more each day of the love of God.

A Theology of Trust

Trust plays an important part in our decisions in life. We go to the doctor and trust that he knows what he says.

In each aspect of life we know there are those who know what they are saying and seek there guidance on different topics. To do so is human we are not experts in all things.

There is a need for trust in theology and religion as well. You see we do not have all the answers. The bible contains the answers but we cannot find our way through.

Luckily God has not left us alone we are not on an island alone with the bible to pluck the answers out ourselves. We have many great thinkers who have explained truth and hopefully brought clarification to biblical truth.

Hopefully we know wise Christians around us and there are many within our church. To not know is not an issue. To not know and be proud is an issue.

There are of course any errors within the church were authority is claimed and unquestioned. You see all wise counsel must be tested.

Many wise leaders in the bible have records of bad behavior and bad advice at times. So all advice must be tested, but the point is that there are wise people who give good advice.

Scripture advises us to seek wise counsel. The whole point of wise counsel is that often we can learn how to live or be shown things we cannot see ourselves.

Of course we must always test wisdom by scripture. The final test is scripture.

An easy test is to find a counter example in scripture and see if the wisdom has absoluteness. If someone makes the claim that God wishes his followers to have wealth can we find a counter example? Of course Jesus himself had no wealth and told his disciples to take nothing with them wherever they went.

You see the twelve apostles are a counter example to the health and wealth gospel they are blessed by God by not by wealth and thus wealth is not an absolute sign of God's blessing.

Some might say that an ascetic life of poverty is what we are called to. Can we counter this? Of course because Paul criticized those who did not wish to work. The bible says that we should attempt to make enough to share with those in need.

The church in a number of cities was supported by wealthy women none of whom were condemned for their wealth. The bible blessed Job with great wealth and he was more righteous than all men. God took all the wealth away and he was still more righteous. Then God gave all the wealth back and his status did not change.

You see wealth is no indication of standing before God.

Benefit of Seeing God's Hand in Life

A lot of us go through many hard times. The bible says that God uses hard times to help people grow.

A lot of people feel as if this is in some sense terrible. I actually find it very comforting.

Suffering is normal in this fallen world. It is far more difficult when we are suffering and we can see no point in it.

Sometimes when we see a point in the suffering (maybe it is as small as a lesson learned or a bad habit fixed) then there becomes something of meaning happen.

This does not make suffering fun, but seeing that God is using things brings purpose to life. And suffering that has purpose is easier to stand than suffering with no purpose.

For a Christian God claims he works all things for their good. So there is always purpose in suffering although it may be impossible for us to see.

At times it may seem impossible that God could work good out of certain events, but by faith we can trust that God is faithful to his promises even when we cannot see how he is doing so.

Stages of Learning

In Christianity it seems there are many stages of learning. The first stage is always coming to faith in God.

That stage in itself is very complex and looks very different for many different people. For some people it is coming to grasp that the bible is true history.

For myself it was coming to grasp that I was who the bible said I was - a sinner who needed the grace of a merciful God.

Later stages of Christian growth are complex as well. There is one aspect I'd like to focus on today.

That aspect is being confronted with truth we do not like. I think it's a common experience although people rarely speak of it when scripture begins to say things we do not like.

We come to faith in God and then scripture starts telling us things about ourselves and our lives and we do not like these things. The reality is that this is about what we should expect because the bible tells us we were lost in sin.

How do we approach teachings we do not like?

Well the reality is the only honest way to approach teachings we do not like is to accept them. If we have accepted that Jesus is who he says he is and he confronts us with aspects of reality we do not care for we need to listen.

I have found then sometimes when I have accepted teaching which I do not like (first on only an intellectial level) then slowly on a more heart/emotional level I also begin to see the wisdom of God's teaching.

The bible says a lot of things which can be difficult to accept, but over time you begin to see the wisdom of them. I think the importance for those of faith is to trust that God knows what he is talking about.

God's ways are higher than our ways and his wisdom is better than our wisdom. The bible is always right even when it at first seems to be wrong.

Paul Rees Quote

A bit from a Paul Rees sermon:

As a biblical commentator put it: “What ever we rely on instead of trusting in God will eventually turn and destroy us.”

Trusting God

Isaiah 2:22: "Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?"

In other words why should we trust in our own power?  It is God who upholds the universe with its trillion trillions of stars by the power of his word.  Should we not regard God who upholds each second and thus enables each breath that all of humanity takes, every has taken, and ever will take!