Trust Jesus. “Can it really be that simple?” a woman who had been in church all her life once asked me. Yes, it really is that simple. We begin our journey of faith by trusting Jesus to save us from our sins and we continue each step of the way by trusting him. The very name Jesus tells us that He, as God incarnate, saves us. When Joseph, who became Jesus’ adoptive father, was struggling with the news that his betrothed, Mary, was already pregnant and he knew that this child was not his, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:2 NIV.) (Jesus is Y’shua in Hebrew which means Yahweh, i.e. God, saves.)
To save means to rescue and also includes the sense of being healed and made well or whole. The thing we need to be saved or rescued from is ourselves. We need to be made truly well and whole. Jesus said that if we try to save our own lives we will lose them but if we give up our lives (lose them) for His sake we will find them (see Matthew 16:25). What does this mean? It means that our quest for self-fulfilment and self-gratification is doomed. We are caught in a trap. The more we focus on trying to fulfil ourselves, the more we become our own end and goal. I become the purpose of my own life. How pointless is that? Without even realizing we are doing this, we become our own god. Since this is in reality a futile quest, it is the greatest deception. Apart from the light that Jesus brings, the whole world is under this deception. Only as Jesus reveals our need to be saved by trusting in Him does this deception begin to break. Anything, however religious or irreligious, spiritual or pragmatic, that leads us down this path of self-salvation will lead to loss and finally that loss will be eternal.
To find one’s life, it must be found in and through the only one who can save us from ourselves, Jesus, God incarnate, man divine. True fulfilment in life is found in giving our lives to Jesus—to stop living for ourselves and instead to live for Him. We start by trusting in His ability and willingness to save us from our sins. We continue by this same trust on a daily, moment by moment basis. This does not stop being a struggle in this life but the more we choose to trust and surrender by God’s grace the more we are enabled to do so by the Holy Spirit and we begin to see the fruit of this trust in our lives. This encourages us to continue to trust and to trust more deeply and in areas we have held back from entrusting to Jesus. (These can include painful past experiences; fears and anxieties; money and finances; relationships in one’s family, church, workplace; needs and desires of various kinds.)
Remember the whole point of this is to truly find our lives! Sometimes, people only take in the first part of Jesus’ statement telling us we must lose our lives and this becomes a pointless sort of self-imposed religiosity which paradoxically still exalts one’s ability to save oneself by self-negation. The point, Jesus tells us, of giving up or losing our lives is in order to save them! Jesus is not telling us that it is ultimately about losing your identity by being swallowed up into “the universal consciousness” but to find your identity, purpose, meaning, fulfilment, goal—however you characterize it—in Jesus Himself. It is only because of who Jesus is and what He has done on our behalf that this makes sense. Our fallen natures are hopelessly self-focussed. Only Jesus can save us from ourselves.
In order to grow in trust, it is vital that you pour out your heart to Jesus. “Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” (Psalm 62:8 NIV) Talk to Him in your own words about everything that concerns you. Be honest with Him and ask Him to help you understand what He wants for you and from you in each and every aspect of your life. Everything that happens to you is an opportunity to grow in trust or to avoid this. We all struggle with this but the Lord is faithful to remind us to trust Him and to let this trust grow deeper and pervade more and new areas of our lives.
Finally, it is important to remember that to be freed from the effects of our fallen self-preoccupation we need to keep turning to Jesus and ask Him to work out His purposes in our lives. As the following song says:
“It’s all about you, Jesus.
And all this is for you—for your glory and your fame.
It’s not about me—as if you should do things my way.
You alone are God and I surrender to your ways.”
You may want to make the words above your prayer. Remember—Jesus has come to give us true and abundant life (see John 10:10).
In this Transfiguration season of God’s love (and on into the season of Lent), let us trust Jesus together, and be transformed through the Holy Spirit by the power of His Cross and Resurrection.
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