 How are we going to get rid of these worries and fears?
Study the book of Numbers and see how their lack of trust brought numerous problems into their lives.
Did they have reason to doubt God?
What about our lives? Do we have reason to doubt God?
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When a person runs into trouble? What do they do?
They run to the person they trust.
How unfortunate that people do not run to God first for help. They instead seek out every alternate path. God designed man to trust in His Creator for his needs. Before the fall of man, this trust was 'natural.' It is not anymore! When man has difficulties, he lacks an innate trust to go to Him. True spirituality is having trust in God.
Without this trust, we have fear and anxiety. Note the three underlying causes for fear and anxiety:
- Unbelief,
- Distrust and
- Doubt.
They all happen when we don't trust. We just don't realize how much our worries are tied to our unbelief. Our unbelief is associated with our unwillingness and inability to trust God.
How can we recover this trust? We have two basic steps.
1) We need to repent from our unbelief.
This action of repentance effectively deals with the rebellion in our hearts and cares for the forgiveness of our guilt from our disobedience. How does repentance so powerfully work?
Repentance comes from a humble recognition that we have not kept His commandments. We defy the sabbath, lust, lie and deceive. We are bitter, steal and backbite. If we believed God, we would fear Him and not disobey Him. As we acknowledge these things, we humble our hearts, ask Jesus Christ to forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). God wonderfully restores our relationship with Him from which trust develops.
2) We need to develop a deeper trust in God.
After we have repented for our unbelief, we have room to trust God. We can start anew in building a relationship with God. We are stating to God that we are seeking Him. We do not have the solutions. We are saying we need Him. That is all He wanted. Listen and obey. He will take us on a path of developing this trust.
We will notice there are three levels of trust. Each level shapes our exposure to anxiety.
A Family Illustration:
When our children have a quarrel with each other, my wife and I have agreed on the need for two things. Firstly, we bring them to the point of recognizing their wrong. I do this by usually asking them if they have done anything wrong. Almost always both of them have done wrong. They do not always admit it. In this case, I ask the other person whether they did anything wrong to make sure. After we have found they did wrong, then we have them specify what they themselves actually did wrong.
After the confession, I have each side apologize for the wrong they have done. Once reconciled, the former 'enemies' are now best friends again. They now automatically hug each other.
In summary, we see that two things need to be done to renew the relationship: 1) admit our wrong, and 2) apologize.
Application
Why don't we pray and humble our hearts right now for the wrong things we have done. Today we want to build a new trust in the Lord and love Him.
Let's look at the first level of trust. Next page.
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