Can God be Trusted?

Christians all across America and around the globe are awakening to the Holy Spirit’s call, arousing to what is happening around us. As we begin to wipe the sleep from our eyes, we look around in wonder and realize that the way “church” has been in generations past is about to drastically change in much the same way that Martin Luther saw reformation in his day as well.

At the same time, there is a very real risk that both hardship and persecution may be upon us, knocking at our doors here in the US. Church could be driven underground.  Satan, who as I’ve said many times is busy hastening the day of his antichrist, is actively looking for who he can devour (see 1 Peter 5:8).  He is working hard to establish across the globe the same social score society that is now prevalent in China.  Here’s what I mean by that:

• Government will establish what is acceptable in society and what is not
• Based upon what is acceptable, each individual receives a “score” on how they measure up to this imposed standard.
• The standard that is setting the precedent now in the US has moved beyond just masks and the vaccine. Moving forward it will expand to include even more
• Those who measure up will be awarded “privileges” by the government (things we all used to take for granted). God-given rights such as free speech, freedom to own property, the right to bear arms, the right to religious freedom, and so on, will be mandated out of society and will no longer be acceptable
• The mandates at first will grant the privilege to dine out, attend concerts, travel, work, and attend school. Very soon it will be expanded to include the privilege of shopping in person (at grocery stores or anywhere else), own property, and more
• People who do not comply with mandates will be shamed. The lower their social score, the less privilege and freedom they will have. Pensions could be taken away. The right to healthcare may be denied. The ability to provide for our families could be jeopardized
• Neighbors, family, and friends will all be at risk of their own social score being affected by anyone they know who is not compliant, in turn causing each one to put pressure on the other to comply

Compromise will be a very easy step and a very dangerous, slippery slope. If you doubt what I’m saying, just look at what’s currently happening in Australia, where the unvaccinated are being put into concentration camps. As the reality of this persecution sets in and we begin to realize what this means to us and to our families, Satan will do everything in his power to hit us square between the eyes with fear, blinding us to any spiritual reality of our good, good Father and His promises towards us for care and provision. All that is happening now is the prelude to the mark of the beast we read about in the book of Revelation (see Revelation 13:16-17). Compromise too many times, and the pressure on us will become so great that we dare not refuse it.

Even now as the ink is still drying on Biden’s newest mandate that companies with more than 100 employees must impose vaccination upon all their employees or face heavy fines, fear tells us that we are about to lose everything we have worked so hard to gain.  The white picket fences of our golden retirement years are about to go flying out the window.  Not only might we be faced with losing our jobs, our privileges, or even our retirement, but if our society turns into anything resembling like it is in China, we will be hemmed inside of a box that tells us there is no way out besides the way they want us to take. What do we do now?

We trust our big, big God, that is what we do! I don’t mean for that phrase to trivialize or patronize anyone who is currently facing this type of crisis or worse, so hear me out. I have heard a number of stories coming out of Afghanistan about Christians who do not love their lives more than they love their God, even when faced with death. (see Revelation 12:10-12). As a result, they are choosing themselves to stay rather than flee, in the hope that God will lead them to the Saul’s among their persecutors (those He is about to knock off their high horse and speak with directly). How can we obtain that kind of faith?

It is exactly this kind of faith that reminds me personally that my God is big enough to take care of any problem that I may be faced with.  There was a time years ago in my own life when I was overseas, apart from my family or anything familiar, under the control of a man who was seeking to punish me in any way that he could.  I had no bed to sleep on outside of a foam mat and blankets. No table to sit at or chairs to sit in. No way to keep or store food, no way to cook it.  It was winter, and I had no hot water for the pipes running through the floors for heat or even to shower with. Physically speaking, I had nothing apart from what this man may have chosen to give me.

Spiritually, I had a missionary pastor’s wife at that time who kept telling me that the God I “knew” was nothing like God Himself, and she was guiding me into prayer and reading scripture in hopes that I might discover the true, living God for myself. So it was that I found myself on the floor in the tiny little apartment I had been living in, reading the following from Matthew chapter six, verses 25-33:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Matthew 6:25-33

Flowers don’t beg to be clothed.  They don’t beg for anything!  They just “are”. Since I had little of “these things” then you would think this should have been comforting to me, but I chose to display anger instead, and the first prayer I had prayed in a long time was far from one of thanksgiving and praise let alone worship!  It went something like this:

“Lord, for the first time in my life that I really remember, I am seeking you with all of my heart and yet, though you tell me these things will be given to me, I have none of them! What then?  What is the need I have that you will supply if I seek You”?

“I AM.   I am your biggest need, and I have given you ME.”

His response to my question resounded so audibly in my spirit that if I had not already been sitting I believe it would have knocked me onto the floor. I began to bawl, and His love began to flood over me again and again in waves. I couldn’t move for a long time, but just sat and cried. I got it. HE was my biggest need, and more than merely giving me blessings that come from His hand, He had given me HIMSELF. The thought could not have sunk into my soul any deeper because no material thing mattered to me after that. Jesus became more real to me in that moment than He had in my whole lifetime. 

For those of you who may be wondering, I could tell you story after story not only of my immediate needs at that time but also for decades to follow how the Lord has tremendously taken care of every physical need I have ever had.

Can God be trusted? The answer is YES! Yes He can, for this and so much more. Take courage and know that He can do this for you, too. He has been waiting for us to awaken to who we are and WHOSE we are, and to trust in His love, provision, and promises. He has been waiting for us to discover HIM above all else.

“Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.””

Mark 12:43-44