When trouble pursues us, who do we turn to? Trusting in the Lord is crucial to our development as Christians if we want to live out His blessings for us. Without trusting in Him, we leave ourselves open to attacks from the enemy. In this post, I want to go over three steps of trusting in the Lord so that your spiritual life, as well as your material life, will be blessed beyond belief. After all, Psalms 84:22 says “O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in you.” That being said, it is paramount that if we want to be blessed by God, we must learn to put our trust in Him.
And, by the way, this is all information that I will be regurgitating from an awesome teaching done by Pastor Brother Carlos Alberto Baena from the Church of God Ministry Jesus Christ International. He is the head pastor worldwide for the church there. The full sermon is shown in the video below, so if you’d rather just watch what I’m about to tell you, feel free to watch that, too. Also, feel free to check out the entire church website where you can find testimonials, sermons, and even more Bible studies.
Step 1 - Trust in the Power of the Lord
Trusting in the Lord completely is the first step in being blessed by Him. Nothing is too great or too impossible for Him to achieve. It is only when we use our human minds to think about things do we have fear or think that this situation is out of our control. In reality, God is simply testing us and is seeing how much faith we have in Him.
Usually, the father of faith is known to be Abraham who, when called to do so by God, nearly sacrificed his son that the Lord had given him. Paul talks about Abraham’s unparalleled faith in Romans 4: 18-21.
18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.” 19 And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. 20 He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.
God had promised Abraham descendants as many as the stars, and Abraham believed him. Moreover, it’s important to note that he didn’t waver. He never doubted God’s promise, for to doubt, is to not have faith. It is to not have complete trust in the Lord. Sadly, this level of faith is not representative of Christians. Many fear the outside world and the opinions of others. I would define these individuals as “Lukewarm Christians” and only following the easy things of the Lord. Only perceiving reality with their physical eyes, not their spiritual eyes.
What’s more, they might even take on the opinions of others for themselves. This is shown in Numbers when spies go out into Canaan to bring back a report of what they see.
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.” 32 And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. 33 There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”
Out of the twelve spies who went into Canaan only two—Joshua and Caleb—remained faithful to the Lord. This is the reason they were blessed. The others thought that these giants in the other land were stronger than them. They saw themselves as grasshoppers and they infer that the giants also saw them as grasshoppers. This reflects an unfortunate truth: how we see ourselves is how other people usually see us too. As Christians we should be confident. We have God on our side, and if God is for us, then who can be against us? Moreover, we need to stop with our physical sight and use our spiritual sight. When we do this, we have the faith required to move mountains or even walk on water.
28 And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” 29 So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!” 31 And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”
I put this story in about Peter to highlight a couple things. First, Peter had the faith to come out onto the water and obey God. However, his faith failed him when he started focusing on the boisterous wind around him. Meaning, he no longer focused on God. He was using his physical sight to perceive the situation, and when that happened, he began to sink. Peter got distracted. As a result, his faith diminished, and he began to sink. It is only by Christ’s grace and mercy that Peter didn’t drown for Jesus saved him immediately. When doubt entered Peter’s mind, he could no longer walk on water. That is why my brother and sisters who are reading this, it is so important that we continue trusting in the Lord no matter what. We must not doubt.
The second thing I want to highlight in this story that segues into the next step of being blessed by God is that Peter goes immediately to Christ. Christ called and Peter came. The second step is obeying the commandants of the Lord immediately.
Step 2 - Obey Immediately the Commandments of God
If we truly want to be blessed by the Lord, we need to follow his way directly. In the story “A Man Born Blind Receives Sight” found on John 9: 1-7 Jesus heals a man who was born blind. Verse 7 reads, “And He said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.”
The man was blessed by Jesus because he obeyed Jesus directly. There was no hesitation. He was given a command and he followed through. Just like Peter getting out of the boat and then being able to walk on water. Truly trusting in the Lord means putting all these worries aside and fulfilling His word on His time. We cannot wait until it is convenient for us to act for God’s timing isn’t our timing. Our timing is susceptible to failure. God’s timing isn’t. God’s timing is perfect.
An amazing experience of obeying the word of the Lord is found in Joshua 6. While it is a little long to put here, I suggest you read the whole chapter for yourself as I’ll only provide a summary. God gives Joshua and his men of war a commandment to march around the walls of Jericho for seven days, staying silent the whole time. On the seventh day, they would march around it seven times, and during the last time they shout and the walls will fall down. The key verse I want to highlight, however, is in verses 2 and 5.
2 And the LORD said to Joshua: “See! I have given Jericho into your hand, its king, and the mighty men of valor. 5 “It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout; then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him.”
Notice God’s wording here. He tells Joshua that He has already given the city of Jericho into his hands. Moreover, He already tells Joshua what will come to pass should Joshua obey the Lord. This is an important lesson for us to understand as Christians. God doesn’t see things as in the future, He sees these things as already completed. We, too, must act like this when we receive our callings from God. We must believe that His word has already come to pass, and if we do, then we will be blessed. However, this doesn’t mean that it will come to pass right away, or in seven days’ time like it did for Joshua. And that is where step 3 comes into play.
Step 3: Practice Patience
Trusting in the Lord also requires patience. God’s word is absolute. What isn’t absolute is our own potential to live up to that word. This is one of the most common tragedies in the Bible—individuals not living up to their potential. David Goggin’s actually has a beautiful little clip to say about this. View it below. FYI in advance, I apologize for vulgarity in some of the language, but the overall message is quite inspirational.
The Bible tells us that we must have patience if we are to receiving blessings from God. Hebrews 10: 35-36 says, “ 35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:”
Our confidence, that is, our trust in God, our faith, has great reward. That reward is the blessings from God to do miraculous things. But, how do we receive that promise? It states in 36 to receive that we must practice endurance. This can also be seen as patience. We need to have diligence. While God’s word might not come to pass today, or tomorrow, it will come to pass. Abraham did become the father of many nations, but this did not happen in his time. He had already passed away by the time this blessing came to reality. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t receive his reward. He did. He will surely be in heaven when Jesus comes to resurrect the fallen and bring up His followers during His second coming.
And that, my friends, is the true blessing from God. Eternity. With Him.
I cannot wait to see you all there. May the honor and glory and praise be forever in the holiest of names, our Lord Jesus Christ.
