We Simply Don’t Trust God Enough

This morning, I read Joshua 1-4 and Luke 5 for my personal study. I was amazed at God’s promises for Joshua and for Israel. Again and Again, God promised victory wherever they laid their feet. The people of Jericho and the surrounding lands quaked in fear of the God of Israel and His mighty works! Fast forward to the time of Jesus: the people trusted in something, but it was not God. They trusted in the traditions they created to help them follow the Law. They trusted in the works of their hands, and they did not trust in the works Jesus did: works that could only be attributed to God (the pharisees would later claim Jesus’ did it through demonic influence, but that’s a different topic).

Comparing the two time frames I read in Scripture this morning to modern times, I can’t help but consider that we, also, do not trust in the Lord and His power. We build traditions and Church houses, and denominations, but we hardly open the Scriptures, unless it is to cement our viewpoint (that is, we cherry pick the Scriptures that best suit our flavor of Christianity). We are more concerned with converting people to our way of thinking than getting them to Jesus, and we argue and fight among ourselves as opposed to considering the mighty power of God! Consider the early Church: they didn’t agree on everything, but they agreed on what was important and foundational to following Jesus. They walked in power, love and self-control! The trust that the early Church had in the God of the Impossible was amazing: many were imprisoned, tortured and/or killed for Jesus’ sake, and the Church grew, not diminished with every death!

Loved ones, eternity is at strength! God has both called and commanded us, washed us in the blood of Jesus Christ, saved us from His wrath and given us His Holy Spirit to dwell in us! Why, then, do we keep our faith only in the church house? Why don’t we, in boldness, go and proclaim the good news to everyone we can? Eternity is at stake! He has commanded us, and tells us not to fear! He is with us! Stand up and proclaim His goodness, and trust Him with the outcome!

Joshua 1:2-9

“Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

2 Timothy 1:1-7

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus,

To Timothy, my beloved child:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

2 Corinthians 3

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.

Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.