What Does It Mean To Trust In The Lord?

Many Christians, especially new Christians, perhaps do not really understand what it means to trust in the Lord. The word Trust is known by many names. Some synonyms are faith, confidence, belief and assurance. We will be using both trust and faith in this message, since they mean the same thing. Many preachers today tell us we need faith, and we do not have enough faith, but I don’t hear anyone telling us what it is or how to get it. Oh yes, they will quote the Scripture, but somehow that doesn’t seem to be enough. I am going to quote the Scriptures and endeavor to clarify what trust or faith is. Once we know what trust or faith is perhaps it will be easier to obtain.

Many times we are told we do not have the right kind of faith or do not have enough. I believe as we exercise our trust or faith, it grows and soon we find we can trust the Lord for almost anything. The Lord desires that we trust Him for everything we need (I Peter 5:7). Romans 12:3 says, God has dealt to every man a measure of faith. Therefore we have faith but it must be exercised to grow. But the worst thing a Believer can do is try to have faith in their faith. This will lead to shipwreck of any faith you may possess.

Another thing that hinders our trust in the Lord is that many times our prayers are selfish and greedy. Are you asking God for things you do not need? We need to check out our list. Is it a list of wants to satisfy our greedy nature, or is it a list of things we really need. God says He will meet our need, not our greed. If we are going to ask God for our needs and if we must ask in faith, we certainly need to know how to trust Him. And yes, I believe the Lord will occasionally give us things we desire, but we must trust Him or have faith for those things also.

Here goes…..What it means to trust the Lord? Heb. 11:1 tells us what faith is.

”Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Perhaps for many people this Scripture does not clarify what faith is. The thing we need to understand is that faith is simply believing what God says in His Word. Our faith is not in our faith. Our faith is not in our confession, even though there is a place for our confession. Our trust or faith is not in man or what man says. Our faith is in a person and that person is Jesus. To trust Jesus we must know Him personally. We do not trust people we do not know and we will never know what it means to trust Jesus until we get to know Him. We get to know Jesus by reading His Word, talking to Him and trusting Him daily. Faith is getting to know Jesus so you will trust Him.

Proverbs 3:5 says we must trust the Lord with all our heart.

Many times people falter in faith because they always want God to work on their time table. We always think our need is so important that it cannot wait. I believe God does, on occasion, answer prayers immediately. But I have found that God usually moves slower than I would like. But let me say right here, God is never late, He is always on time. God’s Word never addresses unanswered prayer. According to Oswald Chambers, “God answers prayer the best way, not sometimes but always. But the answer will come in His time.” We are God’s children and it is His job to take care of us, it is our job to stand in faith and trust Him.

We need to let God know what our needs are (James 4:2), whether physical, spiritual, financial or material and then place our request on hold in our heart and allow God to manifest the answer in His time and in His way. It does not matter what our circumstances are, good or bad, we still place our trust in Jesus (Ps. 34:17). We must stand tall and let Jesus know that we are going to trust Him no matter what.

About three years ago I was driving a car I had been driving for about 15 years and the car was 5 years old when I got it. Needless to say the last several years we owned the car we (my husband and I) put a lot of money into it for repairs. Well, it finally got to the place where we just couldn’t put into it as much money as it would take to keep it running, and we could not buy another one. I talked to God about it. I told Him that He had someone that could give me a car. Then I left it in His hands. I have a good friend that was getting too old to drive and was going to sell her car. I told her to decide how much she wanted for the car and I would see if we could buy it. Now listen to this. The car was 9 years old but only had 16,000 miles on it and had been taken good care of. This was 6 months after I had talked to God about it. When I asked her to think about how much she wanted for her car she said I am just going to give it to you.  And she did.  Hallelujah!!!

God’s Word is total truth and final authority and trust or faith must be placed in that truth and authority. God will not honor faith placed in something His Word does not say. I have a book called, Faith, What is the Right Kind and How Much is Enough? that you can click here to purchase. It will help with your study on faith.

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