WHAT TRUST MOVES US TO DO (AUGUST 27)

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8,9).

ONE OF LIFE’S GREATEST CHALLENGES IS TO TRUST GOD ENOUGH TO ACCEPT HIS MEANS AND HIS METHODS. Many are those who say they love God and trust Him, but in an age when human feelings are the ultimate source of authority, most people are willing to disregard anything in the Scriptures that does not seem reasonable to them. We say we believe God is non-negotiable, but when it comes to “means and methods,” we often see those as flexible.

Few of us would have set up the gospel plan of salvation as God did. Even in the apostolic age, the gospel met with resistance from many who saw it as either ineffective or unsophisticated. Speaking as one who knew what it was like to reject the gospel as being unreasonable, Paul said, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:18-21).

But what about us today? Are we willing to accept God in general matters like love and faith, but when it comes to His instructions in the Scriptures about how these principles are to be carried out, do we balk? The unavoidable fact is, if we do not trust God’s revealed instructions, we do not trust God Himself.

We see no better example of someone yielding to God’s plan than Jesus yielding in the matter of His crucifixion (John 12:27,28). He went to the cross not because it was easy or because it was His preference, but simply because He trusted His Father’s plan. He trusted the plan because He trusted His Father. And make no mistake: it was His obedience that showed that He trusted Him.

"Faith reposes on the character of God, and if we believe that God is perfect, we must conclude that his ways are perfect also" (A. W. Tozer).