I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord! (Psalm 27:13-14)
Let me share something with you that you already know — man cannot be trusted. Of course, there are people in our lives that can be trusted more than others; there are people in our life that we can trust in many ways. The point is though, even those closest to us have the potential to fail us in some way, simply because they’re human. And so, it is a pitiful and unfortunate soul who finds themselves in a situation where they are compelled to put their hope in man exclusively. Disappointment, disillusionment and despair are the likely outcome for that person; not so with God. When we place our trust in Him, we shall not be brought to shame, as it is written, “None of those who trust in Him shall be condemned” (Psalm 34:22).
Now let us consider another aspect of this which is, coming to the place of actually trusting the LORD over anything and everyone else. I mean, let’s face it, we say we trust the LORD but in some situations we discover that we didn’t trust Him as much as we thought we did. To that situation, David said, “Wait (hope) on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart.” When we determine within ourselves to hope in God’s goodness, we are also to commit ourselves to having courage to face whatever we must knowing that our confidence in Him will not be disappointed. But David also adds that, when we resolve to be courageous, God will further strengthen our resolve to be courageous. If we make every effort to be strong in our belief that God will do as He has promised, God will supernaturally bolster that strength that we may be empowered to overcome any adversity.
Pursuing this line of thought, it occurs to me that God will not ask us to do something that is impossible to do. That being said, God’s people have been called to do the impossible which means He must be our source for all. He is the One who equips and empowers us to do what He has called us to do, and yet, He still expects us to do what is within our power to do. When we commit ourselves to live holy, He gives us His Word to know what that looks like and He gives us His Spirit to be able to actually do it. That notion brings me back to what I said at the beginning — man cannot be trusted. In our own power and might, we cannot be trusted to do as God requires; but we can do all things through the Messiah who strengthens us!
Blessings and Shalom,
Bill
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