Pursuit22

Week 6:  T·R·U·S·T

Memory Verse
{Psalm 25.2a – “O my God, in YOU I trust.”}

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~Day 1~
Who Better?

Read Psalm 18.30-31.

There is only one God… He is our only ROCK! And did you get the first part?....... His way is PERFECT! Who better to trust than God with PERFECT ways?

Read Psalm 20.7-8 and Psalm 118.8.

Is there anything that you can put you trust in over God? NO! It doesn’t matter how great someone is or how much they love you. It doesn’t matter steady and solid someone seems…. A human will at some point let you down, disappoint you, fail you. But God? He never will!!!

Read Psalm 73.25.

Once we trust God, we realize that we have no other desires apart from Him. He fills us up! What can we want in Heaven or earth more than God?

-          Do you trust anyone in your life more than you trust God? Be honest with yourself. How can you change this?

-          Reread Psalm 73.25. Could you write this statement out and it be true of yourself? Do you desire Him and His Will and His presence more than anything else in life?

 

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~Day 2~
Best How?

Some of you may wonder… “How can He be the BEST for me to trust? I can’t even see Him!”

Take a look at Isaiah 45.12 and Psalm 100.3.

He’s our CREATOR! You can put our trust in Him because not only did He create the world… but He created YOU! He designed YOU! He knows YOU…. Even better than you know yourself.  But it gets even better….

Read Psalm 40.4.

Not only is He the best to trust because He is our Creator, but we are also promised that we are blessed  when we trust in the Lord! Blessed how?

Read Jeremiah 17.7-8.

We will be planted by the water, not fearing anything, always bearing fruit!

-          Spend some time thinking about the fact that God created You…. He made you. He has a specific purpose for you. You didn’t happen by accident. You weren’t some random chance. You were designed with a purpose. Now do you want to trust Him?

-          Do you feel like the verses in Jeremiah 17 (read them again) describe you? Do you feel like tree planted beside the river that never stops bearing the fruit of Jesus? Do you want it to describe you?

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~Day 3~
“Who Me?”

This past weekend the youth group from my church went on a retreat…. A skiing retreat. I decided to go simply to hang out with the kids but let’s be honest, I’ve never skied, I don’t pick up on things easily, and I’m pretty much a chicken at the thought of flying down a mountain locked in to pointy long boards on my feet. Once I did lessons though and I got going, I actually was really enjoying myself. I decided maybe I could graduate from the bunny hill to the green slope… This is where it got interesting. I would start to pick up speed and FREAK OUT! So that left me only one option, sit down, make myself fall. I did this so many times the first several times down. On about time #8 I decided I was not going to intentionally fall to stop my speed. I decided that I was going to try it. If I fell, no big deal, I wanted to make it down. The last four times down the slope, I didn’t fall a single time. The problem had never been that my body couldn’t do it, that I couldn’t handle the speed, or that I couldn’t make the turns. My body knew what to do. The problem all along was that I didn’t trust my body to do it!

Read 2 Corinthians 3.5.

I know what you’re thinking… “Didn’t you just tell us that we couldn’t trust anything or anyone but God? Now you’re telling us to trust ourselves?” Yes and No. Don’t trust yourself… trust God to work through you. You will never be good enough. You will never be talented enough… on your own. But GOD equips you. He helps you be enough! When He leads you to do something, do it trusting that He will work through you.

Read Matthew 25.14-29.

Why would I have you read this story? The man who buried his talent was afraid he would lose it. He was afraid that if he used it, it wouldn’t be good enough, or that he wouldn’t get anything more out of it. So he hid it and his master was furious. So many times God gives us talents, gifts, opportunities, open doors and we choose not to walk through them with the fear that we won’t be good enough. Maybe you are afraid that you won’t speak well enough or perform well enough or that you will mess up and look bad. Living with Christ has never been and never will be about trusting your own abilities! But by trusting God… We must trust Him to work in us and through us for His glory!

Read Psalm 37.4-5.

This is my life verse. Why? Because when we are totally delighting ourselves in the Lord (seeking Him, trusting Him, finding our joy in Him) and we commit to Him (we put all that seeking and trusting into action by chasing Him), we can trust that HE WILL ACT! EVERY TIME!!

-          Read Philippians 2.13. Do you trust God to work through you? To teach what to do and how to do it? IF not, why? What’s holding you back?

-          Read Matthew 10.20. Do you believe God will speak for you?

-          Thinking back to the story we read in Matthew…. Do you hide out of fear that you won’t be good enough or that you might mess up?

 

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~Day 4~
Why Them?

Well it had been quite the adventurous week. As I said this past weekend I went skiing and now I want to tell you about another out of my norm experience for the week. On President’s Day some of my friends wanted to go hiking. Now while I used to hike up little mountains in my back yard when I was about 9 or 10, it’s sometime I haven’t experienced in YEARS! And never quite this big. We arrived and looked at the mountain and were informed it would be a three mile hike to the top…. As you can imagine I wasn’t too excited. We hiked and hiked and we knew we were about two thirds of the way up and we come up on rocks… huge rocks… boulders. That we were going to have to climb up on and across to get to the top. I thought there’s no way. No way I can do it. No way I’ll make it up. My lack of enthusiasm turned into a huge amount of fear. I’m terrified of heights. I’m clumsy. My friend Mike (the crazy hiker who coordinated this whole event) is very, very strong though. There were several times he had to practically lift the kids and some of us girls on to the rocks. Towards the end I was trusting him more and more knowing that he hadn’t let me fall so far and wasn’t going to. But then…. we got to the last boulder… the pinnacle. It was much bigger than any rock we had got on before and because it was the last one, there seemed to be nothing around it. I was terrified. I decided that I would just stay the rock right below the pinnacle. That was good enough for me. But Mike insisted that I did not come all that way to not make it to the very top. After much encouragement and him promising multiple times that he would get me up and not let me fall, I went for it. There was nothing I could do to help myself. I had to trust that he would get me there… and he did. And it was gorgeous.

The point is, I never would have made it to the top without my friend. If I hadn’t trusted him, I would have just sat on the level right below the top.

In the Christian life, God sends people into our lives to help us. To encourage us. To challenge us. To guide us. To reach our full potential in our walk with the Lord we have to trust God and trust those that He sends our way. We need to trust them to help us grow and be active in helping others grow.

Read Hebrews 10.24-25.

There is so much importance placed on encouragement and fellowship throughout Scripture. Surround yourself with people running after Christ and allow them to help you grow towards Jesus. Also be that encourager for those around you.

Read Galatians 6.2.

We are also called to carry one another’s burdens. When someone needs help, we should give it. Their troubles should be our troubles. In the reverse sense we have to allow others to be there for us in our trials. To pray with us and speak truth to us.

-          When someone tries to encourage you or point you to Christ to you receive it and thank them for it? Or do you have the mentality that you can do it yourself?

-          Reflect again on Galatians 6.2. do you allow others to help you bear your burdens? Or do you choose to carry them alone?

 

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~Day 5~
With All?

Read Proverbs 3.5-6.

There’s that word again…. ALL. We should trust Him with EVERYTHING!

You can trust Him with all and when you do…
He will bring……..

JOY

Read Psalm 33.20-21.

Our hearts can be glad because we trust in HIM!

PEACE

Read Isaiah 26.3-4.

PERFECT PEACE!...... Who would ever say I don’t want peace? When we trust God and fix our thoughts on Him… He gives PERFECT PEACE!

-          Do you have that joy that only comes from trusting God?

-          Do you have that peace that only comes from trusting God?

-          Think on ways this week that you can trust God more?

 

What are your thoughts? I want feedback. Feel free to send me any question responses. I would love to hear from you, answer any questions you have, and pray for your needs specifically. Feel free to share this, comment, email me at brandycaudill90@gmail.com, or facebook message me!