How fully do you trust the Lord? Do you truly believe He knows what is best and right for your life? If you do, then why do you not follow His instructions for living each day completely? Why call Jesus your Lord if you do not obey Him? Jesus posed this question at the end of His sermon Luke 6:46-47 in connection with His story of the man who built his house on the rock.

Jesus said the person who hears His words AND does this is like the man who built his house on the rock, not the man who hears Jesus’ words and says he believes them. We can determine the depth of our trust in the Lord by considering how completely we trust His instructions for our lives. Total trust of the Lord is obeying Him even if you think your way of doing things makes more sense.

The book of Judges gives us the nitty gritty details of what it looks like for God’s people to trust the Lord only when it is “right in their own eyes.” In other words, it gives us the tale of the compromising of God’s people little by little until God’s people look more like the World around them than a kingdom of priests.

Chapter 1 gives us an account of how things went after the Lord called Joshua home. The people had some success against the people in Canaan but not total success. They stopped short of totally pushing the Canaanites out of the land. While at first looks like this is due to their inability to push them out, the real reason behind their failure is recorded in Judges 1:28, “when Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not drive them out.” It made more sense to hang onto some forced labor than to get rid of cheap help. No sense in getting their hands dirty out in the fields when they had all this free labor just waiting to serve their purposes. Their way just made more sense in their eyes than what God had commanded. By the end of the book the people of God have completely walked away from anything even resembling the life God had called them to. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Aren’t you glad we are reading Judges! It is indeed a needed helpful warning for churches and Christians today.

Jesus does not want partial trust; He wants your whole heart not just the pieces you are not currently using. I’m sure if you are honest with yourself, you can look back over your life and see where one small decision to disobey snowballs into larger and larger decisions to distrust and doubt the power of God in your life until you deny Him by your actions. Do not allow Satan a foothold today, kick Him all the way out and live in total trust of the Lord Jesus.

Let’s pray for God’s grace to guide us as we face questions and challenges to our faith from the world around us, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal areas where you are not fully obeying and to give you the strength to overcome those temptations.