Great Expectations: Will you win trust?
Think about all you saw when you stepped outside this morning. Was the sun shining? Did you hear birds or see squirrels making the most of their morning? Did you take a deep breath?
Without our thinking about it, life happens.
The sun keeps shining. The seasons change. We have air to breathe.
From the beginning, when God created the world, He set systems in motion. If He decided to ignore those, our world would quickly turn chaotic. God takes responsibility for what He creates. Even when we failed Him, He promised a way of escape through Jesus. He made good on this promise, and after we take our last breath we can trust that we’ll be with Him forever. God has proven that you can trust Him with every moment of your life.
But God doesn’t want for us to move through our life simply trusting Him. He wants us to become more like Him by showing others that we can be trusted as well. Every day, you have opportunities to take what God has given to you: your stuff, your words, your relationships and use them wisely. When you respond to God with the abilities that He has given to you, you are responsible.
And when you are responsible with a little, the Bible says you will be given more: more opportunities, more relationships, more ways that you can use what God has given you to reflect His character to the world around you. Our monthly memory verse says it this way, “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.” Luke 16:10, NLT
Our series is called, “Great Expectations—will you win Trust?” It plays out like this: God has proven He can be trusted. When we trust Him and we respond to Him with our abilities, then we are responsible. And when we are responsible, we live a good story. We are a light to others. They will see our good works and glorify God because of how they see Him at work in us.
It’s important to remember that we can’t do any of this on our own. But God isn’t asking us to! God is the One who’s proven He’s responsible and trustworthy since the very beginning. Our responsibility is really a reflection of God and His character showing up in us. We can be responsible because of God’s power at work in us to help us respond to Him with everything we have—our ability, our stuff, our words, our time and our actions. Imagine how the world might change if we lived out these “great expectations” and became even more trustworthy people!
May 20: This week, we’re discovering:
The Greatest Commandment (Matthew 22:34-37). When we love God more than anything, the other responsibilities (using our stuff, words, and actions) are easier to live out. When you get the relationship part right, the responsibility part is a more natural expression of our love, rather than something we do because it’s a rule.
Our greatest responsibility then is actually something good: loving Someone who loved us first and loves us most. So in response, our Bottom Line is: I can be trusted when I put God first. This goes well with the Basic Truth that: I can trust God no matter what.
This week we will tie the previous weeks together with the key ingredient of love and recap the month. We’ll discuss all of our different responsibilities and the one Jesus said was most important to remember.
