Being Completely dependant and Trusting in the Lord

-One of the biggest things I have definitely learned this year that I want to speak about is having complete trust and dependency on the Lord.
-It was certainly one thing I struggled with before I came to Kings Commission (this 9 month discipleship program that i graduated from in May of 2009), because I just thought I could get anything on my own, and provide for myself at any time if I needed to. I would either look to myself to provide for my needs, and my parents. I never really did fully trust and be dependant whole heartedly on the Lord. But, boy was I wrong.

-Romans 7:18, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”

-Many people today don’t realize how truly important it is to be completely dependant on God to provide for your every need, to direct your every step, and to allow Him to speak through you at all times. Many people don’t realize how important it really is to truly die to ourselves everyday, so that the Lord can live through us, and live as an example for other people around us. We don’t realize how important it is to give up everything to live for Christ, because we aren’t willing to sacrifice everything. We may sacrifice this part of our lives, and maybe this small part. But, we aren’t willing to give our complete everything in total surrender.
-But, wait, didn’t Christ give His everything for us, when He died on the cross? So, shouldn’t we give Him our everything everyday? Yes!!! By us also giving our lives for our brothers and sisters in Christ, we give our lives for Him as well.

-1 John 3:16, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”

-The prophet Elijah in the Old Testament had to have complete dependency and trust in the Lord for every single thing. He had to trust the Lord to keep him alive when people were out to kill him. He had to trust the Lord to provide water when there was a drought in the area. He had to trust the Lord to provide food while he was hiding out in the wilderness from Jezebel. He had to trust the Lord to give him strength so that he could travel 40 days and 40 nights to the mountain of God. He had to trust the Lord to rain down fire to burn up the sacrifice on the altar on Mount Carmel, to prove the worshippers of Baal wrong, and show that the God of Israel was real. Elijah had to trust the Lord for every single thing. Elijah couldn’t have provided and done everything for himself that the Lord did for him. (1 Kings 17)

-Now in today’s society we don’t see those kinds of things happen that happened back when Elijah was here on the earth. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t put our full trust in the Lord. We can’t live a single day without the Lord doing something for us. He allows us to have every single breath that we breathe. He provides for us food and water everyday. He provides for possibly a job to keep our normal living conditions up to date. He provides shelter, and a bed for you to sleep in every night, and clothes for you to wear. He provides the gift of Salvation, so that we may be saved, and have the opportunity to make Him Lord of our life. We don’t deserve anything at all. We shouldn’t expect anything at all from the Lord, because we don’t deserve it. But, the Lord still gives us these things because He loves us. But, there are so many times when we take these things for granted, like it’s ours, and we take all the credit. But, you are dead wrong if you have that attitude. The Lord deserves every bit of credit for every single thing. Because only He is the one that gives us life. So, we must also make it a determination, to surrender to Him, and to offer our lives as living sacrifices to Him. He desires for us to give Him our every breath, our every decision, our every possession(because all of it is His anyway, because He gave it to us), our every idea, our every step, and etc.

-But we think that, all of those things are ours, and that we came up with them. But, no, it is all the Lord’s. The Lord came up with it all in the beginning. He gave us those things in the beginning, for He is the creator of Heaven and Earth, and everything in it. So, we must give it back to Him, by us giving our lives to Him, so that He can live through us everyday. There’s a price we must pay, to be considered true followers of Christ.

-Matthew 16:24-25, “Then Jesus said this his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”

- Many people today aren’t willing to pay that price. They take everything for granted, and think they deserve everything. They think they are free to do whatever they want, and live a Christian life whatever way they want to. But, they are wrong. And we are wrong if we think that. We must read God’s Word, and live it. We must trust and depend completely on God every breath of our life. Because we can’t even live without Christ in our life.

-Christ has to be first priority in our lives. If He isn’t, we are only setting ourselves up for failure, and we are heading down a path of destruction. Elijah never put anything in higher priority than the Lord. We must never put anything over God in our lives, because whatever is above God becomes our number one priority in our lives, and becomes an idol. That breaks the Lord’s commands, and His standard that he set for us.

-Matthew 6:33, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

-We must not put relationships over God, or sports, food, possessions, people, dreams, time, etc. He must be first in every area of our life. In our decisions, what we do, what we think, what we say, how we spend our time. Is all that approved by the Lord in your life? We must come to the realization that we need to be pre-occupied by God. If we aren’t, we aren’t living our life for the Lord, whole-heartedly. And God will not accept half-heartedness. You either live a life for the Lord, or you don’t.

-Joshua 24:15, “…then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve,…”

-So, when it comes down to it, when the line is drawn in the sand…by the things you do in your life, and the things you say, are you living a life for the Lord, or are you living a life for yourself? Pick a side. You can’t stand in the middle, or stand on both sides.

-Revelation 3:15-16, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

-Do you trust and depend on the Lord, or do you trust and depend in yourself, and the things of this world?


-PM