In relationship with Jesus, the same power that raised him from the dead is alive and active within you, as well as in the world you live in. Everyone lives according to their own choices, and the choices of others will continue to have meaningful impact on your life. However, the hope you have in relationship with God is what empowers you to overcome the most challenging circumstances and maintain order in your experience. You may still feel hopeless at times, but with Jesus your reality is that the help available to you is genuine and you have direct, immediate access in the experience of your relationship with him.
Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. Romans 8:10 (NLT)
Why believe in God? How can you know convincingly that Jesus is alive and present? Why consider a relationship with Jesus? What really is it to have faith? What does it mean to have a relationship with God, to know Jesus, personally?
Let’s start with faith. Faith defined is something that is believed with especially strong conviction and assured confidence, with complete trust and loyalty, without question. The Bible describes faith as substantiated by a profound sense of hope from within, authenticated by the evidence of your experience, especially when it is not clearly seen, and scientifically not likely, or even possible.
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32 (NIV)
To experience faith is to trust this truth from the Bible, that the truth will set you free, as though your life depends on it. To have relationship with God, is to know his son, Jesus. To know Jesus, you only need to ask him into your life, and then see what happens. It’s okay to let him know that you’re not perfect, since he made you in the first place. Jesus is able and willing to heal, rebuild, and restore the broken places in your life. Like a caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly, your life can and will be transformed—forever changed—into something new… something BETTER.
So, what is it that do you do? You simply ask Jesus to help you beyond what you can do on your own. You ask Jesus to heal you. Ask Jesus to do what you know needs to be done. You let go of what you cannot do for yourself, and you let God do what only he can to help you. That’s it.
When the presence of God in relationship with Jesus takes hold of your life, it is an experience that will break the chains, freeing you from what has held you captive. Calm replaces chaos. Healed replaces hopeless. Peace replaces pain. Encouraged replaces discouraged. Sensibility replaces shame. Worthy replaces worthless. Freedom replaces fear. And finally, what has been wrecked has been restored.
The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Deuteronomy 31:8 (NIV)
To truly have faith is not merely faith imagined; it is faith realized. To experience faith is to embrace relationship with Jesus. Accepting God’s mercy and grace, allows the God’s forgiveness to wash you clean. You will recognize from deep within that you have established a truly spiritual connection with God in ways that can’t help but change you for the better. You’ll then find it rather easy to trust these truths from the Bible. It is then that the hope in you is your assurance of a new life, and a better way of living it.
Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all. Romans 4:16a (NIV)
A mustard seed, something smaller than a kernel of corn, can adapt and grow in the wild through highly disturbed, most unfavorable, conditions, to sprawling heights of 6-20 feet. When Jesus talked about faith, he said that something as tiny as a mustard seed, with faith, while pushing through obstacles along the way that would otherwise be impossible, can grow into something incredible. Jesus insisted that applying faith will drive through what feels impossible, moving the mountains in your life in a way that allows you to get unstuck and move forward, no longer immobilized by fear and doubt.
“Truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20 (ESV)
This passage does not indicate the removal of the mountain in your life, though miracles are entirely possible. Jesus said that, no matter how small you feel in the face of your challenge, because you have faith, the mountain in your way will “move from here to there.” Here is in your way, and there is out of your way. What was once daunting and insurmountable is reasonable; challenges once impossible are far more favorable because of who you know is in front of you, leading the way with strength and power.
Confident Faith
The fundamental truth is that trusting God comes from being confident in your belief that relationship with Jesus is essential to your well-being. It’s in relationship with him that the fear of what doesn’t seem possible is replaced by confidence in the relationship you have with him.
Perhaps, the most apt definition of hopelessness is faithlessness. What is hope without faith? The absence of faith is a desolation that descends into desperation. Faith in relationship with God transcends our circumstances, challenges, confusion, and contradiction. It’s by faith that we most experience meaning, freedom, and joy.
For some, faith can go dormant. Perhaps, you had faith but somewhere along the way you strayed from it and got lost. That was often the case with the inmates I counseled while working at the prison. In prison, the men didn’t usually find God, they returned to God. Dormant faith revoked the value of freedom; meant to be lived in the experience of peace and joy. Trusting in themselves, they returned to behavior that brought pain and struggle to themselves and others; even loved ones. Incarcerated, the men were once again desolate and bound. Liberty became a stranger. From prison, they valued their freedom. Some of the men would say out loud in therapy groups that they had never felt more free. They found freedom as their dormant faith awoke and once again moved within them.
The faithless inmates still hopeless and desolate, vocally resented those with faith. I encouraged those guys to consider asking their peers living by faith how they got there, rather then despising them for experiencing freedom of new life within the walls of prison. Some of them who did then discovered that their prison wasn’t cinder block walls so much as it was those six inches or so between their ears. Once freed in their minds, it changed everything for them.
How did they do it? They asked Jesus to come in and live there.
Jesus is asking you to let him in. Can you hear him through the all of the commotion in your head?
“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in.” Revelation 3:20 (NLT)
So, it comes down to this: Do I trust myself enough on my own or do I give faith a chance? What do I have to lose? What do I have to gain?
The more I am separated from that which I truly want, the more it hurts me. I don’t even have to know what I’m missing. Yet, something in me always knows. I’ll buy into the lie that the next big thing I settle for is good enough—even believing that it makes me happy—until I experience the hurt connected to what I have settled for. The distortions come at a price. Counterfeit pleasure and relief is costly. How much am I willing to pay—willing to lose—before I come to my senses? Must I go broke? Emotionally, relationally, and perhaps even financially, bankrupt?
The thing about the metaphor of the mustard seed with genuine faith is that it is resilient. Resilient faith empowers us to overcome anything, against all odds. How large the mustard plant becomes is equivalent to the surrender of control over to God; trusting that his will is best. The promise is that as we let go of what we cannot control, and let God do what only he can as we grow in our confidence in him, he moves the mountain that’s been in the way of what we want and value most for our life.
“If you are struggling with a broken heart, remember that hope is more cognitive than it is emotive. Hold on to your hope. Keep the emotions of your heart from crushing your expectation in God.” —Pastor, Dr. Charlie E. Dates
It is a huge point to recognize that hope is so much more about what you know and believe, than it is in how you feel. When what you know and believe is built on relationship with God, how you feel rests in what you know and believe. When your hope is built on relationship with God, the circumstances in your life will not dictate what you trust in and hope for. It then permits you to let go of what you fear, since what you fear pales in comparison to where your hope lies.
“Stop dwelling on the past. Don’t even remember these former things. I am doing something brand new, something unheard of. Even now it sprouts and grows and matures. Don’t you perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and open up flowing streams in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19 (PHILLIPS)
I don’t need to hit some kind of bottom in order to change my ways, but it’s not in my nature to initiate the change process until I hurt bad enough to need to change. It’s the pain I experience that creates enough dissonance (discrepancy) between what I really want, and what I’ve been left with. My pain is what motivates me to do something about it. Until I finally want better, why change?
“After that night, however, I began to make excuses… I wanted something to explain away the very real and terrible possibility that God existed and that he wanted something from me… But even with all of my justifications, I couldn’t deny that I felt something I had never felt before. I felt God.” —Alia Joy
Until what has felt so normal fails us, we tend not to dispute what we believe works for us; even when what we believe is working is in fact not working. Let that sink in and then choose to challenge beliefs proven by your own experience to be less than reasonable.
Reach for the only life-changing force able, willing, and wanting to empower you toward something better… way better. God can and will restore what’s broken. Let him!
Released to Trust Again
Allowing God to set you from free from of bondage allows for the deconstruction of resentment. Permitting God to comfort you with his peace is the protective shield of defense against evil against you paving the way for the wisdom to risk being vulnerable again; to trust again. The love of God penetrating your inner being is the force that prevails over fear. When forgiveness is fearless it’s a powerful thing to be experienced.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones. Proverbs 3:5-8 (NKJV)
To fear the Lord (meaning sovereign authority) is to choose to submit to the one that everything else is subject to; including everything you fear. It’s how we know that God is good and full of love for us; fighting for us. God loves us so much that he has allowed for us to choose to have relationship with him. We can choose to go our own way apart from God, but how has that worked out for us?
“Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.” Deuteronomy 31:8 (NLT)
The best we can do to remedy the discomfort of anxiety and fear is to invest in relationship with God. The promise is that as we invest in God and his best for us, we will receive everything that comes with the return on our investment (Matthew 6:33). Our problem is that while we don’t always experience God’s best right away in the moment, we tend to rely on our own understanding of what’s best. In doing so, we subject ourselves to less than his best, which apart from God is connected to that which we have reason to fear. If what we want most is to be free to experience joy, why would we attach ourselves to less than God’s best, killing our joy, only adding to what we fear?
To live in the best of God what God has for you, promotes healthy self-esteem and confidence. To trust God with confidence allows you to trust others worthy of trust. You’re more able and willing to trust others again after being hurt when the healing and comfort of God’s presence in your life has wrapped it’s arms around you; when you know God has you and won’t let you go. Should you stray, God is walking with you.
It’s okay to maintain healthy boundaries; to keep your guard up. It’s okay to be reticent about vulnerability; putting yourself out there. A healthy wall of trust has windows and doors so you can see and discern what’s out there, and what’s coming. Let others knock on your door and prove themselves worthy of your trust before trusting enough to let them in.
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Written by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project
