Who do you trust, really trust?

Do you trust man more than you trust God?

Do you trust God, really trust God?

Jesus did not trust man because He knew what was in man!

Do you believe Jesus lived His life on earth that way because He was both fully God and fully man, or because as man who was tempted in every way you and I are tempted yet without surrendering to the temptations and commiting any sin, He knew by His experiences as a man what man was capable of doing that would not be acceptible to God the Father?

Jesus as God never lived as God while He lived on earth as a man!

Paul said Jesus did not think being equal to God was something to be grasped and that He emptied Himself and humbled Himself! Jesus became totally vunerable and in His vunerability relied on God’s trustworthiness to help Him navigate the life God sent Him to live.

Do you trust God like that?

If not why not?

Who have you placed your trust in that is more reliable and trustworthy than the God you say you believe [trust] in?

John 2

“23 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. 24 But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, 25 and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.”

1 Peter 2

“13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, 14 or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. 15 For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. 16 Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.

17 Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. 18 Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. 19 For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.

21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth; 23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously. 25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”

So many church leaders fall into the trap of thinking they are leading God’s people correctly when they themselves have stopped following the Chief Shephered! Following the Shepherd creates suffering and too many leaders stop following Christ the moment the price of suffering becomes too high for them to pay.

These ‘church” leaders are not really leaders because they have compromised their leadership by entrusting themselves to the people God supposedly called them to lead, for the purpose of obtaining or maintaining their position, paycheck and potential promotion.

Never knowing or possibly forgetting it is God who promotes those in His kingdom who remain trustworthy through continuously proving they genuinely trust God at all costs, they demote themselves in His eyes in order to appear promoted to the people who are in truth leading them where they want to go, not where God calls them to go.

“6 For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. 7 But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.” Psalms 76 KJV

Did you notice the psalmist did not include “north” in his assestment of where promotion never comes from? Or did he reveal real promotion comes from the north?

God sits enthroned in the “north!”

Isaiah 14:13

“But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north.”

The pride of lucifer was that he would ascend above the heights of God and His position in the north. There are many functioning in the spirit of lucifer standing before God’s people leading them, some unknowingly, in rebellion against the God they say they love and serve.

How?

By not surrendering to the Lordship and Leadership of Jesus the Sent Son!

Self promotion may look good to some but in the halls of heaven and in the heart of God it is a stench that has eternally disastrous results. Are you willing to risk the eternity God placed in your heart?

The prophet Jeremiah said this of these carnal, corrupt, and compromised “shepherds.”

Jeremiah 50

“6 My people have become lost sheep; Their shepherds have led them astray. They have made them turn aside on the mountains; They have gone along from mountain to hill and have forgotten their resting place. 7 All who came upon them have devoured them; And their adversaries have said, ‘We are not guilty, inasmuch as they have sinned against the Lord who is the habitation of righteousness, even the Lord, the hope of their fathers.'”

What was their sin?

It was following leaders into what they perceived was a place of stability, security and safety – “From mountain [harder place to live] to a hill [apparent easier place to live].”

Jesus Himself warned about these politically minded shepherds in Matthew 9 – “35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. 36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.'”

His next statement to them was, “5 ‘Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; 6 but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.'” [Matthew 10]

In other words, “My compassion compels true kingdom shephereds [leaders] to intervene with My compassion, ministry and message, not with the ministry and message of the compromised religious [church] leaders who do not carry My compassion.”

Jesus revealed His kingdom leaders do not stay and pray. Rather they pray as they go intervene!

Dear leader, if your message and ministry is not what Jesus sent His original messengers to say and do your ministry is yours, not His!

Paul spoke of these compromised shepherds in Acts 20 – “ 28 Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church [ekklesia] of God which He purchased with His own blood. 29 I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears. 32 And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.”

These “savage wolves” are self-promoters and their goal is to dethrone God the Chief Shepherd from His position and power to promote those He qualifies as ready for the promotion!

They would never “advertise” their goal to you but that is their goal nonetheless!

Jesus Himself warned of these demonically inspired “servants” when He said, “Beware of [Be aware of not afraid of] false prophets who come to you [leaders] in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”

Do not trust anyone – leader or otherwise – who is drawing you to them and away from the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word, rule, will and ways. The moment they become more important in their own mind than Jesus is – RUN!

They speak “pervese things” which means they:

• abandon the proper path of holiness
• pervert purity for their own pleasures
• plot against God’s purposes
• reverse course against what and who they once said they valued
• serve their own selfish needs
• twist [distort] truth by misinterpreting it

Who do you really trust?

Receive and steward God’s passion, power, presence, priority, process, promises, protection, provision, pruning, purging, purity and purpose!

Dr. Kevin M. Drury, DMin

A Radical Revolutionary

#TRM