Who Would Jesus Trust? (Second Dispatch from the Divided Kingdom)

This is my second dispatch from the divided kingdom.

Today I awoke with gratitude and it occurred to me that I should also thank God for these divided times. There was a brief period of history when we may have been tempted to place our trust in humanity, in earthly powers, in parties, presidents, personalities, and modern-day prophets.

But God is reminding us of what Jesus knew: “But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.” John 2:24-25 ESV

He is shaking every idol out of every tree and bringing us all to our knees so that we might look up and find the God who saves and say with the Psalmist:

I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

³ Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
⁴ When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.

⁵ Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
⁶ who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
⁷     who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
⁸     the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
⁹ The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. Psalm 146:2-9

On the surface, it seems a thin and pitiful existence to put not our trust in other humans and yet, Jesus lived fully in our midst with his trust and faith invested solely in our Father. This orientation freed Him to love, to listen, to minister, to enter the throng and yet not be ruled by its opinion or its demands, to hold others close and yet, not yield to every temptation those relationships presented.

It’s not that we don’t let others close for didn’t Jesus develop deep relationships with the twelve? And when he announced that one of them would betray Him, nothing in how he treated them led them to immediately finger Judas.

It’s not that Jesus was a skillful actor, it’s that His primary trust had a vertical orientation, was tethered to a higher power, was framed within the context of His relationship with His Father God.

This primary trust ran so deeply through His DNA that all other trust was invested with the understanding that it must first filter through the spiritual spine and nervous system that is full confidence and faith in the Creator God.

And if we follow Jesus in this – if every choice we make, every development in our relationships, every word of news, every global happening – if all this we offer first to God before we offer it to our own understanding or submit to the understanding of pontificators and false prophets – then we will remain steady when the world tips on its axis – as it will as the birth pangs of the end times reach their peak.

In these times, if I turn to one news channel and then another, it is as if they report on alternate worlds. If I turn to one preacher and then another, it’s as if the Bible says different things.

If I build my faith on certain leaders, on friends, on parents or children or kingdoms or philosophies or denominations or celebrities, if I build my faith on any foundation but Jesus Christ, then my faith will implode like a shoddy high rise when the ground begins to shake.

But, if I embed in the foxhole of placing all my trust in Him alone, then I will say along with David, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.” Psalm 20: 7-8 ESV

In the divided times, David consulted the Lord on every move. “Should we go up to this city?” “Should we fight this battle?” “Should we stay, or should we move?” After the death of Christ, the disciples, too, relied on consulting the Holy Spirit for every decision as their world entered complete upheaval.

Now is the time, not some other. Now is the time to place all your trust in Jesus Christ alone. To develop a habit of reading His Word, of listening to it as you go about your day, of clicking onto it like it’s the Facebook of eternity, of allowing His Word to be the ticker running across the screen of  your life, to pin the stories of the gospel to the Pinterest board of your heart, to trust the one channel that has no bias except toward Jesus – the channel of God’s Word opened to our hearts and minds by the Holy Spirit.

Yes, of course, live informed, but to be fully informed, we must be steeped in eternal headlines.

Brace yourself in Christ, loved ones, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Who Would Jesus Trust? https://t.co/N9WAimGa1J How do we know who to trust in these divided times? #Jesus #Evangelicals

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) January 8, 2020