I have been recently led, through the faithful preaching of a friend and brother in the Lord, to ponder and measure the depth of my love-for and trust-in Jesus and how I may practically increase my love of Him so that His is the superlative love in my heart.

This has raised a question in my mind: What is the relation between trusting in Christ and loving Him, and what implication does this have on a practical level?

Moreover, is the imperative to trust in Jesus supposed to be a separate exercise of will from loving Him, almost like unto a blind trust without empirically testing and tasting that He is good and trustworthy?
Are these ideas of love and trust related?
Can a believer in Jesus, love Him by trusting Him more, or trust him by loving Him more?

Throughout scripture the ideas of love and trust are intermingled, not as being the same idea, but rather where one is the other shall be found also.

The objects of one’s love are usually the objects that you also place your greatest trust in.
The greater the affection for an object, the more you will trust in that object to effect for you the matter for which you place your trust in it.
I.e. If I love money, it is because I trust in it to yield me all that it promises to (although the promise may be empty) – security, comfort etc.

The psalter overflows with illustrations and expressions of trusting God. One such example is Psalm 4
Psa 4:7 You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.
Psa 4:8 In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.

In verse 7, David explains that the source of His joy and delight is God; in the very next verse he exemplifies the trust produced by the delight which he places in God. He trusts in God with a fierce, compelling trust;
Moreover, David loves the object of his trust; he has a much greater affection for the joy of knowing and walking intimately with God Most-High than for the contextual spoils of a rich harvest and the accompanying wealth and security it would bring.

The application of this concept is life-altering!
If we trust in God and delight in God through Jesus Christ, based upon His sacrifice for us,we will trust that what He says concerning us and what He commands us to do is significantly better than our understanding of it regardless of whether we approve or disapprove of it.

This applies well to most areas of life, but a good personal and practical example is being productive at work.
I’m easily able to meet all my deadlines at work and still find time for non-work-related activities, but if I trust what God says about working (i.e. it is good, necessary and must be done with diligence) and believe that He is my reward (He is my reward, not as a result of working, but by grace) even if I have no other reward besides wages (which in and of itself is also grace anyway) then I will through delighting and trusting in Him pursue that obedience in the wake of trusting Him.

Doubtless, this will have more practical influences in our lives.

Fruitfully,
Charl

the title is the closest description to which I can pin the odd mezzanine-like feeling my wife and I experienced yesterday at a family lunch. It was as if we hovered somewhere in a alternating real/ethereal plain; the state of our existence fluctuating between “we acknowledge their presence” and “honey, I distinctly heard that bench over there utter the word ‘hey!’”

After two years of marriage, I assumed that my wife’s extended family would have given credence to the fact that we had arrived upon the social scene. After all, ‘marriage-class’ was the level I thought we would have to graduate to to become noticeable to our extended kin. Apparently not. Maybe it’s ‘married-with-two-kids-class’ that we have to aspire to.

the trouble with this way of thinking is that we’re going to have start becoming pretty inventive after having 5 children. I mean, what if, after having enough offspring to adequately cover months January through November, we’re still not included in the inner circle of trust?

Perhaps this should have been my very first attempt at putting some thoughts in order; It makes a lot more sense to count the cost before attempting to spill thoughts onto a platform that will have to – in some form – bear up under public scrutiny.

The prospect of having one’s ideas laughed to scorn is a daunting one. Perhaps it is because we would hate to see our creation fall short of approval.

Who’s approval are we seeking? Is it God’s?

Is God’s attribute as Creator in some way communicable to us, His creatures?

Did He also create to meet with our approval? In a restricted sense, yes.
We were created for His glory, but not to approve of Him as a critical art collector might cast a discerning eye upon a coveted piece. Rather, to marvel at Him; to gasp, agape at how every revelation of Himself transcends our feeble understanding.
Nor does God need our approval, whereas without His approval, which is ours in Christ Jesus, He will cast us into the pit, to be eternally seperated from Him.

God’s creation is fundamentally unique, because His creation remains perfect, regardless of any objective opinion. Nor is their any platform of higher criticism.
Our creation is tarnished by how public sentiment deems it. Thus, we are creator, but only as much as our creature-ness allows us to be; confined eternally by our desire for approval.

How does this alter me?
Human approval matters only to the degree in which it stands in concord with God’s approval. To write of things other than meet with this grand standard, is not worthy to be named substance; and can merely aspire to exist as Reflections.

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