Can God Trust You?
Can God trust you? I’ve just finished a 4-week series titled: “What’s In Your Hand?,” asking how are you nurturing the relationships, your family, your job and your calling?
Every situation in life is a test, and how you act, react, or don’t act- God is watching. And not only does God look at actions, He looks at the heart.
In order to be used by God, how you’re nurturing what’s in your hand right now; how you’re treating people; and how you handle life’s pressures are all being examined. I want to briefly look at 4 ordinary people in the Bible and how God used them to do extraordinary things. Before He used them to do extraordinary things, He examined how they handled situations in their pre “leadership” days, to see if He could trust them with the increase of greater leadership opportunities.
Revenge or Trust
1). Joseph in Genesis was sold into slavery by his brothers, and then he was lied on by Potiphor’s wife. But after years of imprisonment, God gave Him increase and he found favor with the Egyptians, and became the second most powerful man in Egypt. Why did God elevate Joseph? - because He knew He could trust him. God knew the heart of Joseph. Even as a young kid when Joseph received a prophetic dream that he would be important, and bragged about it to his family- God knew his heart and that he could trust Joseph in a position of importance.
Then, after many years, his brothers returned because they needed food for the famine going on in Canaan. That was a perfect moment for Joseph to bring revenge on his brothers. But after years of sitting in prison (a not nice place in those days), Joseph developed a heart of love, a heart of forgiveness, and a heart that mirrored the heart of God. God could trust that Joseph would do the right thing and bless his immediate family, a whole nation.
2). David in 1 Samuel was a shepherd boy. From Bethlehem and the youngest of at least 8 children. He was mistreated by his family and spent his time outside protecting the sheep from wild beasts. There, as many theologians have mentioned, David developed a close relationship with God, his Father. God could see in David, from a young age that He [God] could trust David. Why? Because David had a heart that was after God.
15 years had passed from the time Samuel anointed David to be king, before David actually became king of Judah, and then later as king of Israel. In those 15 years, David, like Joseph, was given a series of tests that would prove the possible making of king. King Saul had fallen from God’s good graces and became jealous of David, often trying to kill him. David could have killed Saul but he didn’t (1 Samuel 24). Eventually God’s vengeance fell on Saul and he died, and David became king. David didn’t fall into revenge but trusted God, and in turn God trusted David.
Opposition or Trust
3). Nehemiah in Nehemiah was a cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, king of Persia. And though that was his role, God had something great for Nehemiah to do because he could see in Nehemiah’s heart that He could trust him. Artaxerxes gave permission for Nehemiah to go back to Jerusalem in 444 B.C. to rebuild the wall, because the Babylonians had taken the Israelites captive many years earlier and destroyed the city walls.
Rebuilding the wall required someone that needed to have thick skin and that was full of reverent fear of God. Nehemiah and the builders had opposition- the kind of opposition that threatened their lives in the form of: Sanballat, Tobiah and the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites. Nehemiah could have cowered at their threats, and gotten depressed at the fact that he had been tasked with such an extraordinary assignment. But, he stayed firm and strong in God. Nehemiah was a principled man before he was tasked with rebuilding the wall; and he was a man with resolve to nurture his calling. So God could trust Nehemiah to oversee rebuilding the wall, and later in Nehemiah we see him with strong leadership skills keeping the Israelites in line to worship God with purity and honor.
An Unknown Path or Trust
4). The Virgin Mary in the Gospels and Acts is an inspiring woman. Mary came from a very devout Jewish family from Nazareth. They went to the temple for all the holy days and were respected. And somewhere around the tender ages of 12, 13, 14 she gave birth to Jesus. Any Jewish girl would have wanted to be the earthly mother of the Messiah. And while she was the mother of Jesus, she plays a key role in providing the details we have in the Bible.
Anyways, when Gabriel appeared to her, and told her she would birth the Christ she didn’t argue like Moses. She said, “ ‘I am willing to be used of the Lord. Let it happen to me as you have said.’ Then the angel went away from her” (Luke 1: 38). To be tasked with the honor of being the mother of the Savior of the world came with an incredible burden. Though Mary said yes, she had no idea what she was in store for, but she trusted God. And God looked at Mary’s heart and he knew He could trust an ordinary girl with this incredible extraordinary opportunity.
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Every situation in life is a test, and how you act, react, or don’t act- God is watching. God looks at the heart and He’s looking for a love for Him, a love for others, the Fruits of the Spirit, the character of Christ, as well as trust and surrender to Him. When He finds a heart that’s after His heart, He will choose ordinary people to do extraordinary things.