Tag Archives: Ruthless trust

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The Defining Spirit of Authentic Discipleship

Read: John 14

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.” (John 14:1, NLT)

In his book, Ruthless Trust, Brennan Manning tells the story of ethicist John Kavanaugh, who traveled to India to work with Mother Teresa in “the house of the dying”. Kavanaugh was searching for what to do with the rest of his life, so he asked Mother Teresa to pray for him that God would grant him clarity.  She refused, however, saying, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.” When Kavanaugh protested that Mother Teresa herself seemed to have such great clarity, she responded, “I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust.”

It is trust, Manning goes on to say—simple but ruthless childlike trust we place in God—that is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship. I agree. That is what Jesus called his disciples to in the first century—to trust in God, to trust in him—and that is the challenge Jesus lays down for those who would follow him in our age.

No matter how you slice it, the basic minimum requirement for following Jesus always comes down to this: Will you give him your total trust? If you will, you are on your way to the most exciting and rewarding experience of life a person will ever have—walking with Jesus. And from what Jesus said in John 14:1, we can deduce that one of the basic blessings of placing our trust in God is a trouble-free heart.  Not a trouble free life, mind you, but a heart (and a mind, Paul adds in Philippians 4:7) that is guarded by Jesus himself.

However, if you won’t give God your total trust, your Christian experience will never get out of the harbor and set sail on the rewarding voyage of risky discipleship.  You will find yourself nursing a troubled heart and traveling a less than satisfying journey with God.

“Trust in God,” Jesus says, “and trust in me, too.” So, are you?  When your faith is boiled down to its basic elements, will we find there, in spite of life’s circumstances and in scorn of faith’s consequences, a simple but ruthless childlike trust in God?  Or is trust something that merely gets talked about but never fleshed out?

A lot of people talk about trusting God, fewer people actually place the totality of their lives in the Father’s hands and unequivocally say, “into your hands, I commit my spirit.  May your will be done.” If you are one of the courageous and committed few who do, you have given the greatest gift a human being can place before the God who has everything—the rare trifecta of extreme dependence, radical faith and resolute obedience.  Nothing brings a smile to the Father’s heart like that.

In the 1850’s, a famous tightrope walker named George Blondin, for a publicity stunt, decided he would walk across Niagara Falls on a rope that had been stretched from one side of the falls to the other. Crowds lined up on both the Canadian and American sides to watch this unbelievable feat.  Blondin began to walk across, inch-by-inch, step-by-step, and everybody knew that if he made one mistake he was a goner. He got to the other side and the crowd went wild.  Blondin said, “I’m going to do it again.” And to the crowd’s delight, he did. Then, to everybody’s amazement, he crossed again, this time pushing a wheel-barrow full of dirt.  He actually did this several times, and as he started to go across one last time, someone in the crowd said, “I believe you could do that all day.” Blondin dumped out the dirt and said, “Get into the wheelbarrow.”

In a very real sense that is what God is saying to you and me. Our talk alone is cheap.  At some point, we need to get in the wheelbarrow of trust and prove that our discipleship is real.

“Trust is our gift back to God, and he finds it so enchanting that Jesus died for love of it. … Unwavering trust is a rare and precious thing because it often demands a degree of courage that borders on the heroic.” ~Brennan Manning

What If God Took Over?

Pray this honest and humble prayer:  “God, I trust in you.  Help my lack of trust!”

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Ruthless Trust

Read: Matthew 4

During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.” (Matthew 4:1-3, NLT)

From the Word of God in general, from human experience—mine and other people I’ve witnessed over the years—and from this story in particular, I could make a pretty strong case that doubt is the number one strategy Satan uses in our lives to disrupt, weaken and ultimately destroy our faith in God.  If he can get us to question the goodness and sufficiency of God and his Word, then our spirituality will be dead in the water.

Every time the devil came at Jesus with a temptation, the very first word was “if” — “if you are the Son of God…if you will kneel and worship me…” (Matthew 4:3,5,9) Behind Satan’s enticements was the goal of getting Jesus to question God’s care and competence as well as his identity as the cherished Son of God.

That is exactly what Satan will do to you—most likely even today.  He will cause a question to arise in your mind as to the reliability of God’s Word, the dependability of God’s love, the sufficiency of God’s supply, and the truthfulness of your unmovable place as a cherished child of God.  Just like clockwork, the “if” question will be sown as a seed of doubt in your spirit before the day is out.

The number one defense against Satan’s strategy to destroy your faith is trust—ruthless trust.  Each occasion in which Jesus was hit with the big “if” was met with a return to what was unquestionable, unshakable and immovable—the Word of God.  Jesus’ answer to the assault on his faith?  “Scripture says…” (Matthew 4:4,7,10)  Jesus stood on the promises of Scripture, knowing that obedience to it was the only way to God’s provision (“man shall not live by bread alone”), true spiritual muscle (“jump off” and prove your divine power), and ceaseless kingdom authority (“all the kingdoms of the world will be yours”).

Trust—ruthless trust. No assault from the enemy can penetrate it, and no temptation, regardless of the power of its enticement, can hold a candle against it.  So no matter what, lean into God’s Word today—there is nothing in all creation as reliable.  Trust in God’s character—his care and competence have never been proven impotent.  Wait patiently for his provision—it will never lack the satisfaction you truly need.

And by the way, when you respond to temptation with ruthless trust, not only do you punch Satan in the nose, but you give a priceless gift to God. I love what Brennan Manning says in his book, Ruthless Trust,

“The splendor of a human heart which trusts that it is loved gives God more pleasure than Westminster Cathedral, the Sistine Chapel, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, the sight of ten thousand butterflies in flight, or the scent of a million orchids in bloom.  Trust is our gift back to God, and he finds it so enchanting that Jesus died for love of it.”

So throughout the day today, look up, smile, and trust!

“Unwavering trust is a rare and precious thing because it often demands a degree of courage that borders on the heroic.” ~Brennan Manning

What If God Took Over?

Analyze the things that are tempting you today.  Find out how they are assaulting your trust in the reliability of God’s Word, the sufficiency of God’s provision and the immutability of your position as a cherished child of God.  Once you do that, you will see what temptation promises as nothing more than a false infinite—something that in the light of day cannot hold a candle to what God has in store for those who ruthlessly trust him.

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Two Views

Genesis 40:1-43:34

Two Views

The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him…
Genesis 40:23

When two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream…
Genesis 41:1

So Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and he was quickly brought from the dungeon.
Genesis 41:14

Go Deep: As you read the prison portion of Joseph’s story, you can’t help but be impressed with this young man’s deep and abiding trust in the goodness and sovereignty of God.  Joseph believed in the core of his being that God was in control, and that God was fundamentally good, and those beliefs became settled law for Joseph.  Neither his current circumstances nor his emotions at the moment would trump the fact that his life was in God’s hands.  So when Joseph’s ticket out of prison, the cupbearer, forgot about him and when Joseph languished for another two years in a squalid Egyptian jail, Joseph trusted.

I would like to think that’s how I would react to the disappointing and hurtful things that will get thrown at me in life.  I’m guessing you would like to think that about yourself, too.  The “Joseph way” is certainly a heroic way to do life—and one that must be so pleasing to the Father who takes such delight in our trust.

But to live life like Joseph, you have to understand that there are two views of the road ahead.  The first view is the human perspective.  That is where you simply and only see what is right in front of you—which means that sometimes all you see are bumps, barriers and big, old hairy difficulties. Obviously, it is quite normal to look at the world from such a point of view; you are human, after all.  But if that is the only view you have, you will be prone to discouragement and enslaved to the emotional ups and downs that come from being slapped around by life.

What you really need to have in order to live the “Joseph way” is an eternal perspective. That is the other view, and it is a grand one! The “Joseph way” of viewing life comes only by way of fundamental trust in the care and competence of your Heavenly Father.  It understands that while you may be languishing away in your prison of unexpected and undesirable circumstances, God is above it all and he clearly sees the road ahead of you.

If you can’t learn to enfold your human perspective into that kind divine perspective of ruthless trust in the God who is in control of all things and works all things to his glory and your good, get ready for a frustrating stay in Pharaoh’s prison.  If you can order your life by the “Joseph way”, everything that comes your way—especially the bad stuff—becomes fodder for the God who takes what was meant as harm and turns it to good. (Genesis 50:20)

Just Saying… One of my favorite writers, Brennan Manning, poignantly writes, “The splendor of a human heart which trusts that it is loved gives God more pleasure than Westminster Cathedral, the Sistine Chapel, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, the sight of ten thousand butterflies in flight, or the scent of a million orchids in bloom.  Trust is our gift back to God, and he finds it so enchanting that Jesus died for the love of it.”