Childlike Trust

Child like trust…what is it and how do we get it?

Children have an innate ability to go to their parents asking for things and simply trust and believe they will get it for them.  And if they do not get what they want and a tantrum ensues without breaking this trust, they are disciplined. They trust time after time that after learning their lesson they will still get what they asked for when they are ready and can handle such a gift.  God is like this with us. Being the faithful good parent…. are we the faithful trusting children. 

You can have child like trust believing for good in any circumstance you find yourself in because God went to such great lengths to tear the veil…to tear down the thing that separates us from His Holy Presence.  And that is all we need for childlike trust and to believe, to go in and sit in the presence of A Holy Father who will listen and to whom we can listen without fear of anger or death.

Do not be deceived however that you get to sit in the presence of God ibecause you got it right.  You do not get it right ever.  You do not go in because of repentance or any good thing you have done.  You go into the throne room in His Presence because JESUS GOT IT RIGHT FOR YOU…. Continually gets it right for you. 

He got it right, became the perfect acceptable sacrifice so you can ask the Father for anything in His will and if you believe that you have it, it will be yours. (Matt 21:21-22; John 14: 12-13)  However to know the will of the Father you must first go in and sit a while in the presence of God, seeking Him and His will with all your heart.

This is our standard; the standard Jesus modeled and puts into us if we are willing to receive it.

In Hebrews we find much guidance and wisdom for it says:

God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance (Heb 1:1)

And He also promised

            …If we are faithful to the end…trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed…we will share in all that belongs to Christ… (Heb 3:13-14)

Wow what an incredible inheritance. And we get to pass this inheritance onto our children.  What an awesome thing.

But it also comes with a warning:

Be careful dear brothers and sisters.  Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving turning away from the living God. (Heb 3: 12)

This unbelief is a biggie.  Our unbelief causes us to loose out on all that God has promised to us.  Unbelief is turning away from God, believing is the opposite.  It is turning to seek the Lord with all your heart.

So if we share in what belongs to Christ then what exactly belongs to Christ?  

Everything!  Listen we are privileged to share in everything, the good, the bad and the ugly.  If through the trials and sufferings we learn obedience as Christ learned obedience through his trials and sufferings and have a deep reverence for God…remaining faithful, trusting firmly, believing, turning toward God, not away, offering up prayers and pleadings with a loud cry and tears believing …trusting God who can rescue us. (Heb 5:7-8) we get to share in everything.

Everything includes the blessings and the trials

Jesus learned obedience through His suffering in order that He would be obedient , trusting and faithful to the very end, laying down His life so God could tear the veil that separated a Holy God from an unholy people.

What is everything?  Everything is God’s glory-the fullness of the measure of Christ, which is the very image, or character of God. 

Christ in you the hope of glory (Col 1:27)

Often we hear of glory in reference to Shechinah glory.  Although this term is not used in the bible it is a Chaldee word later used by the jews to refer to the resting place or presence of God.  There are many allusions to this Shechinah in the New Testament but again the word itself is not used. 

Often we hear or read about people trying to get to this Shechinah glory, in fact it is worshipped by some as the ultimate place we are to try to

WE can enter into this Shekinah Glory without death because of the very high price of the blood of Jesus Christ.

If you think little of yourself you must think again.  There was a time when I was asking God for a house on the beach with a view but all the houses were in the million dollar range and I was complaining I would never get what I wanted and when I stopped complaining and turned to God and sat with Him awhile He reminded me I was the million dollar mansion by the beach

Are you thinking little of yourself, feeling sorry for yourself?  Well think again. You are not only a million-dollar mansion, you are more than a million dollar mansion; the price paid for you by God is immeasurable,

The bible says:

Christ as the Son is in charge of God’s entire house and we are Gods house (h

Heb 3:5)

His million-dollar mansion bought with and paid for by the very precious blood of Christ. And Christ is in charge of us.

So if we are million dollar mansions given everything that is Christs- all of Gods character and Christ is in charge of use and in us to the full measure (John1)

 How then shall we live?

The bible says:

Gods throne endures forever and He rules with justice and God anointed God the Son pouring out the oil of joy on the Son more than anyone else…to rule with justice and …He is always the same (Heb 1:8-12, 13:8)

If this is true (which it is) and if Christ is in charge of us, the most expensive house on the block and He rules with justice and joy…well then…

We must listen very carefull to the truth we have heard or we may drift away from it. For if every act of disobedience and violation of the law was punished what makes us think we can escape…so what makes us think we can ignore this great salvation? (Heb 2:1-2)

Listen the violation of the law was already punished once for all time by the death and blood of Christ.  Hallelujah we don’t have to take that punishment this is our salvation DON’T IGNORE IT!

However this does leave one thing that is still punishable OUR DISOBEDIENCE.

And if Christ learned obedience through his trials and sufferings and if God disciplines us as children whom He loves we can be sure God will allow trials and sufferings to discipline us because He loves us as children and these trials and sufferings

are achieving for us a glory that far outweighs them all. ( II Cor 4:17)

Listen we must turn toward God, toward Jesus in these times of trouble or trials or testing and not turn away.  To turn away in unbelief, distrust is to turn our back on God, much like a stubborn obstinate child in rebellion of their discipline for throwing a tantrum when they do not get what they want. .  And when a child is stubborn and obstinate not yielding to what is to be learned in the discipline it just prolongs the time before the good gift can come.  So lets not prolong our time out!

The devil would love to deceive us by distracting us to get us focused-to get our attention on

             Our selves

             Our problems

  Our misery

Even the good things such as

            The Shekinah glory

            The blessings

            Our selves, What God will give us, What God is not giving us

Even our own repentance,

We can mistakenly think in our hearts that it is because of our repentance we will get the good things of God.  Its not, repentance just ushers in the mercy of God based on what Jesus did and we get God’s blessings and gifts because of His goodness, not our rightness, repentance calls on Christ’s rightness in us

Look it is not about us whether good or bad, It is all about Jesus, all about God.  So we must listen carefully to what God is saying or even not saying.  God is sometimes silence and that is His speaking as well.

Oswald Chambers writes in My utmost For His Highest 10/11/2016

When He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.  (John 11:6)

Has God trusted you with His silence-a silence that has great meaning? God’s silences are actually His answers.  Just think of those days of silence in Bethany.  Is there anything comparable to those days in your life?

We must remember Martha is a picture of sacrifice, Mary a picture of Obedience through worship.  And while God loves obedience more than sacrifice (I Sam 15:22)

It says in the previous verses to John 11:6 that Jesus loved them all. And Yet He stayed where He was.

Oswald Chambers goes on to say:  

Can God trust you like that? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself…. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response?

Complaining in your heart by lack of trust or worry or fretting or even mourning because you are not getting what you wanted and you repented already or you are not getting a visible answer.

When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible-with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand and even bigger revelation.  If God has given you a silence then praise Him- He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes…. (Obedience, worship, peace) For a while you may have said, “I asked God for bread but He gave me a stone instead (Matt: 7:9-11). He did not give you a stone and today you find that He gave you the bread of life (John 6:35)

A wonderful thing about God’s silence is that His stillness is contagious- it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident sot that you can honestly say.  I know that God has heard me”.

Because through your trials you have learned to reverently fear Him and God hears us because of reverent fear.

If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father then He will give you the first sign of His intimacy-silence.

Whether God is answering audibly or manifesting His answers or is answering in His silence we must listen carefully to the message that says:

            Today when you hear His voice do not harden your hearts

            As Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested Me in the wilderness

            Their hearts always turn away from me.  They refuse to do what I tell them.

(Heb 3:7-11)

           

We must

Make sure that your own hears are not evil and unbelieving turning you away from the living God…For if we are faithful to the end (of each and every trial or suffering) trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. (Heb 3:12-15)

What a promise. 

So we must ask ourselves today where is my heart?  Is my behavior and words speaking trust, and belief in spite of my circumstances?  Am I turning to God and God alone and not his blessings, his signs and wonders, his spiritual gifts all which are from God but for the sole purpose to give testimony to Jesus so we would turn our hearts toward Jesus and worship the amazing sacrifice He made so God could tear the veil and we could come in and sit in the very presence of a Holy God.

Does my life reflect the incredible worth of who I am in Christ based on the incredible worth of the price paid for me or does my life reflect the dissatisfaction and distractions of the enemy who is stealing something very valuable from me…My CHILD LIKE JOYFUL TRUST.