For years after my born-again experience, I kept thinking there must be some effort that God was expecting from me. There is an old Christian song with a line that says, "Wondrous things the Lord can do with just a little help from you." For some reason, I had accepted that saying as being true. I didn't believe that Jesus meant what He said in...

John 15:5: "...for without me you can do nothing."

Nor was I trusting in what Paul wrote in Philippians 2:13,

"For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."

One day, reading a book about our walk of grace hit me like a bolt out of the blue when I saw a picture of two trees, one called the 'Trusting Tree' and the other called the 'Trying Tree.' God never asked us to try to be good or to try to be like Him. When Jesus was asked what we should do to work the works of God, He said,

"This is the work of God, that you trust Him whom He has sent." John 6:29

So many scriptures began to make sense after awakening to this fact. When we trust Jesus and not ourselves, we are allowing Him to be Himself in us just as we are.

The verse in Galatians 2:20 made sense for the first time,

"I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

It helps to realize that in the Greek language in which Paul wrote, there is only one Greek word for trust, faith, and belief. Paul is trying to help us see that faith (trust) is a gift. We get to live by Jesus's trust in His Father.

In the book of Romans, Paul repeatedly emphasizes that our old man is dead, and we have a new nature, the Holy Spirit, given to all who trust in Jesus. As Paul tells us in Romans 8:6,

"For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace."

When we don't believe the truth that our 'old man' is dead, we are setting our minds on the flesh. To be spiritually minded is to remember we have a body for the Spirit's use. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:17,

"But he (the body) joined to the Lord is one spirit."

I love and can identify with what Dean is sharing about how the Bible speaks to us about trust. It is a life-changing revelation. When we live trusting Jesus, we can "be" what He has made us to be. We are free from fear and doubt. When we 'try' to be good, we deny God's ability to love freely through us to everyone we meet. He has given me the ability to trust Him.

Linda Chicquette