Love Without Trust?

Can you have love without trust?

People today replace all kinds of things in exchange for real love. Why?  Because we know that to really love someone makes us vulnerable, and being vulnerable puts us in a place where we would have to trust, and well, “that’s not going to happen”!  To avoid this, we sometimes separate all the things that make up true love into categories and then pretend as if each category by itself is not connected to our emotions.

Does that sound like you?

What has buying into that type of philosophy gotten anyone so far?  I imagine it ends up in dysfunctional relationships, fractured emotions, compounded pain, self-denial and a whole heap of insecurity.   On top of that, sometimes we even try to be close with people we have no business relating to in the first place.  Sharing intimate secrets with people who have no intention of keeping secrets or treasuring them in a way we expected, but instead takes and adds maliciousness to it and spreads it to everyone behind our backs.

It is no wonder then that we tend to shun true love, because deep inside we know our ability to trust has been trampled underfoot by anyone and everyone.

Did you know there was someone else, someone famous, who did not trust people because he knew what was in them?   You might be surprised to know it is Jesus Christ.  The bible tells us in the book of John, the 4th book of the new testament, that “Jesus didn’t trust them, because he knew all about people. No one needed to tell him about human nature, for he knew what was in each person’s heart.” (chapter 2 verses 24-25).

You might be wondering how you could ever trust in anyone then, especially knowing not even Jesus Christ himself trusted anyone?  Jesus had a secret.  He may not have trusted people, but he had absolute trust in what God’s grace could do within people.  If we put our trust in people first, we end up insisting on them being what no one could ever be, and that is absolutely right.  Not one of us is always right, always good, always loving, always kind.  We fail, even when we never intended to do so.  But God himself in the person of Jesus Christ can be trusted always and in all ways.  We can trust in his grace to not only change others but to change ourselves as well.

Do you know Jesus?  He is not some religious figurehead like Buddha or Mohammad or the Pope, who is here one day and dead, buried, and gone ever after.  He rose again from the dead and is here, now, alive, with us.  Even though each one of us fall short in one way or another, he is there waiting to offer us the true love we seek, and He is the only one who can fill that God-shaped hole in the middle of each of our souls.

“But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood…” Romans 3:21-25

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16