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How can we trust God?


Faith is more than positive thinking. Positive thinking will NOT produce faith. Faith is trust in God, and the only way to develop faith is to learn to know God. Since He is trustworthy, as we learn to know Him, we spontaneously learn to trust Him. Faith is trusting God when things don't turn out the way we expect.

Hebrews 11:6 is the classic text:
"Without faith it is impossible to please God: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is (that God exists), and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."
God IS a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Not those who seek merely His blessings, but those who seek Him, are the ones who find their reward. For He is the reward.

Yet, Luke 18:8 says, "When the Son of man comes, will He find faith on earth?"
You can't work on your righteousness - nor can you work on your faith. Both are gifts. Both are fruit. Both come as a result of knowing Jesus. And knowing Jesus comes as a result of spending time in communion and fellowship and relationship with Him. If you will come to Him, He will give you the genuine faith that you need.

The first byproduct of seeking Jesus is genuine faith. Righteousness, or right-doing, is the second.

No man can create faith. The Spirit of God operating upon and enlightening the human, creates faith.

Only two things are necessary in order to trust someone. First you must find someone who is trustworthy. Second, you must get to know him.

But when it comes to the Christian life, only one thing is required; that you come to Jesus, and that you keep coming to Him day by day. If you will keep coming to Him, God has made Himself responsible for taking care of everything else that needs to happen in your life. "If the eye is kept fixed on Christ, the work of the Spirit does not cease until the soul is conformed to God's image." E.G.White, The Desire of Ages, pg 302.

The only deliberate effort in the Christian life is to seek God. Spontaneous effort toward other things will result.

God is bringing us to a decision: Do we trust God or do we trust in "man"?

Isn't it reasonable to trust good Christian experts, like doctors and counselors? Doesn't God work through them?

When Jesus was on earth and someone came to Him for healing, He never once said, "Go see Luke, I heal through doctors." (Luke was a physician) Instead, Jesus healed the person directly, either through His Word, which we have today in the form of the Bible, or He healed them through natural methods, such as clay or water.

God has promised to "heal ALL our diseases." Psalm 103:3 He tells us that He, alone, is our Physician. "I am the Lord who heals you." Exodus 15:26 Then He tells us exactly how He will do it in Deuteronomy 7:11-15: "If you obey My laws (including His Ten Natural Health Laws), My commandments and My decrees. . . I will keep you free from EVERY disease." 

We must claim God's promise of healing, THEN we must follow His procedure that consists of keeping His Ten Commandments and following His Ten Natural Health Laws.

All action is dependent on belief. In other words, if you believe something, you will act on it. If you don't believe it, you will not act on it. If you truly believe that God heals through His Ten Step Natural Health Plan, you will follow it. If you DON'T believe in it, you won't. Instead, you will go to the doctor and use drugs and/or surgery to treat disease. 



Many Christians believe that God gave us doctors, so therefore we should use them. Just because doctors are present on earth, we cannot automatically assume that God wants us to use them. The mere presence of various other groups of people on earth, such as thieves, prostitutes, murderers, does not, in any way, suggest that God wants us to employ their services.

(Note: I'm not suggesting that doctors are thieves, prostitutes or murderers. Please don't miss the point of this illustration.)

Many Christians will say they believe in God's Natural Plan of Healing, but then they trot off to the doctor to receive conventional drug treatment. It is impossible to have it both ways. Your actions will reveal your beliefs. What you DO speaks much louder than what you say!

That's why the Bible says, "Faith without works, is dead." If you claim to have faith, to believe God's promises, but you don't act on them, then you really have no faith. Your faith is "dead."

We are told in Isaiah 1:18, "Come now and let us reason together..." yet in 2 Corinthians 5:7 we're told to "walk by faith and not by sight."

What happens to our "reason" if we walk by faith (believing without seeing) and not by sight. The knowledge of this world tells us that we should only believe when we see! I'll believe it when I see it," is a frequently spoken phrase.

But God's way is different. God says that we will only SEE, when we first BELIEVE! The "believing" comes first. We must believe that God WILL do what He has already promised to do. Only then will we see the promise fulfilled.

Jesus could not do many healings in His home town of Nazareth "because of their unbelief." The one prerequisite for anyone who came to Jesus for healing was that he must "believe" - he must have faith.

But in order to trust God, one must get to know Him. You cannot trust a stranger with your life. In order to trust someone, that person must, over time, prove himself to be worthy of your trust - to be trustworthy.

So, how do we get to know God so well that we can trust Him with our life? 

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