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Transcript:
Hello, welcome to Walking in Step with God. I am Steve McDonald. Today we explore the topic “Trust God” as we kick off a brand new series “Experience God.”. In this series, we hope to inspire you to lean into God with all of your being and to expect Him to make you aware of His presence. Experiencing God can have a life-changing effect when you realize that the Creator of all things in the universe allows you to sense His presence in your life, be it subtle or overt.
In today’s message, as we start our journey of learning how to experience God, I’d like to dive into the ‘why’ we can trust God. Today, we will explore 3 reasons that we can absolutely and positively place our trust in God. We can place our trust in Him with the mundane elements of our lives as well as the events that may shape our lives for years to come.
The truth is that placing our trust in God is one of the most important steps we can take to truly realize the potential of having Him in our lives.
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I will be right back after this message.
Welcome back. Let’s continue in our discussion of 3 reasons we can trust God.
#1 He loves us
God loves us more than we can fathom. If you are a parent and can imagine the love you have for your child, there is a love from your Father God that surpasses anything we can conceive of.
God loves every one of us. God loves every single person in your life. He loves the individuals that you love and adore. He loves the individuals that you may have disdain and distrust. God loves the people of the earth, regardless of their sins of the past and the present. God loves those who bring joy and compassion into the world, and He loves those that have caused great harm to others.
Note I am making a point here that God’s love is universal. He even loves those that we as a society show hatred and disgust. Our actions – be they actions of godliness or actions of sin – do not nullify God’s love for us.
God created each and every one of us and His love is demonstrated in the fact that we can always turn to Him, regardless of our circumstances. Much as a parent loves a child, God is ready with open arms when we turn to Him, even after a lifetime of sin.
#2 He has a plan for us
God created us and has already laid out plans for our lives. He knows a pathway that is best for our lives to fulfill our purpose and utilize the gifts He has planted within us. We can trust God because He has formed a perfect plan for us that leverages our gifts!
When we enter the world, the gifts within us may be discovered at an early age or later in adulthood. In both cases, God has already mapped out a perfect plan. The challenge for most of us is finding God in the first place. Speaking for myself, I lived a life without God until my 30s. While I had been exposed to the idea of God, I didn’t take it very seriously. I did feel that there might be ‘something’ out there, but I lived a life and lifestyle that was most certainly of the world and not of God.
It wasn’t until I found a deep curiosity to pursue God and learn more about Him that I would get a glimpse of the plans He has in store for me. In retrospect, I definitely can see how my gifts were revealed at an early age, but I would not know the full picture of my potential until much later in life. In fact, I am still learning God’s plans for me and my life. For example, 3 years ago, I would have never imagined that I would be sitting here, speaking with you! I cannot even fathom what God has in store for me 3 years from now.
As I pass through middle age, I can start to see the telltale signs of God’s plans for my life. The good news is that if we veer off our plan, God can steer us back to a path that He knows is best. That is precisely what happened to me. God can work with any situation and any circumstances for His good, so long as we seek His guidance.
Ask God today to reveal His plans for your life!
#3 His will is perfect
A fundamental reason to trust God is that His will is perfect. God does not make mistakes or errors. God does not lack knowledge or wisdom in any shape or form. Therefore, His plans are perfect and His will is perfect.
God’s will in our lives is our best possible plan, like it or not. Living in the world for a time before learning of God’s will may cause some hesitation to explore God’s plans for our lives, especially if we have plans that do not align with what appears to be God’s will. In these moments, we must remind ourselves that God and only God knows all things. God knows all of the moments of our past and all of the possible outcomes of our future. It seems to me that we might as well seek out God’s will for us so that we can be aligned with a plan that He knows is best.
Our loving Father is aware that we may have hopes and dreams, and this is ok! We can bring our hopes, desires and dreams before God, but let us present them to Him in such a way that we yield to His will of these hopes and dreams. It is not a simple thing to do early in our walk with God, but over time we learn that yielding to God’s will is the most powerful thing we can do to line up with God’s plan.
I invite you to bring yourself before God each day, asking Him to align you with His plans for your life and His will for your day, knowing that you can trust Him with every fiber of your being.
Wrap Up
In today’s message, we discussed 3 reasons we can trust God. We explored the idea that God’s love is absolute and complete. God does not pick and choose who He loves. He loves everyone on earth, even those who society hates. We discussed that God has a plan for each and every one of us. God knows we may not be aware of our plans until we are mature enough to perceive them, but He does allow us to discover and explore the gifts He has planted within us. As we grow older, the sooner we can look to Him to guide us to His plans for our lives, the sooner we can experience a life that is perfected according to God. Lastly, we discussed the idea that God’s will is perfect. Unlike us, God has no flaws or imperfections. He knows the past and future. He knows every single one of us – our hearts, our motives, and the thoughts of our minds. As we seek to live a fulfilling life, we can embrace that God’s will is the best possible outcome for all circumstances. We simply need to be willing to seek it.
We can trust God with all of our hearts and with all of our minds. Trusting God with our lives opens doors to a new way of living–one where we can know and trust that God is ordering our steps, in each moment of our lives.
Are you interested in discovering more about the guidance offered in this message? Learn more in the companion article Going Deeper with the Word: Trust God
