Dangerous Trap

Transcript:

Good Morning and Greetings in Jesus name. Welcome to this amazing new day!

Are you ready to let the Lord lead you one step at a time into greener pastures? He is your shepherd, He is the one who provides everything that you need. He is the one who makes sure that you will have no need, no lack, no areas of your life that are malnourished. You have to trust the Lord to take care of each and every one of your needs.

If you see a child who tries to take care of himself or tries to meet his own needs, you are going to conclude that this child doesn’t have a parent looking out for them, that is the ‘Orphan attitude’. Orphans have to take care of themselves, but you and I, we have a Father in heaven, we can trust in Him and we can rely on Him. It is not enough that we just rely on Him only through our hearts, it is necessary that it flows down into our actions; the words that we speak, the way that we deal with the environment around us, it should show how much we are relying on the Lord.

Proverbs 29:25, “Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safety“. When we trust in the Lord, it has a meaning, it has a definition and outcome to it and it means that you and I will be safe into eternity, our eternity is secured when we trust in the finished work of Jesus. Our eternal safety depends on how much we can believe and how much we can embrace and receive that.

In the same way, our physical and practical safety, during our lifetime here on earth; the safety that we experience in our marriages, our finances and relationships, the properties that we have been given and each and everything we have been entrusted with, how safe they can depend on how much we can trust in the Lord, how much we can trust in His wisdom, trust in His ways. Did you know that God has prescribed a way of life for each and everything that we do here on earth, He has told us how to spend our money, how to do our marriages, what to do and what not to do in the ministry, how to serve our bosses and our work, everything that is written in scripture is for our benefit.

Now to the same extent we trust Him, to the same extent we will be safe and secure and we are going to be provided for. The Bible says, ‘Trusting the lord means safety.’ On the flip side, when you fear people, when you are afraid of their opinions, and you are not ready to take care of yourself in the midst of negative criticism, that becomes a dangerous trap, and this is true for everybody; this is not just talking about unbelievers or people that are in the world driven by public opinion, this is also true about the children of God.

You will find a lot of people that followed Jesus, they believed in Jesus, they did agree to the teachings of Jesus and they even realized with the revelation that He is the Messiah, the Son of God and yet because they feared people, they were worried what people will think about me when they see me following Jesus, they were worried what will happen to my family, to my reputation, to the offerings that I get from these people. Because they feared people, it eventually drained them of their love for Jesus and it became a dangerous trap as they ended up unfollowing Jesus, and instead, they ended up following people they actually feared, who’s opinion they are actually afraid of, who’s the criticism they don’t know how to deal with.

And the bible says that these people couldn’t follow Jesus for a long time. In fact, Jesus would look at them and say, ‘Hey, I know what’s in your heart’. He didn’t entrust Himself to any of them because He knew that the opinion of man, the experiences of human beings, the traditions that they have been following till now, that was more important to these guys than what God was saying.

So, today it is our choice to decide what are we going to trust. Are we going to trust people or are we going to trust the Lord? Fearing people reflects and shows off in various areas, and I have seen especially Pastors and those in ministry i.e. Men of God because we deal with people, we are more susceptible to this dangerous trap of being in bondage to the fear of people, being in submission to what people will say, how people will view me, how people will take it or reject it.

I am not asking you to be insensitive to the people around you, or be rude to them or be dismissive towards their opinion, I am saying that you don’t have to fear them enough to change your trust in the Lord. When you begin to think that it is these people who pay my salary, it is these guys who take care of me, it is these guys who are building my ministry when we think these thoughts, we are in fact giving credit to people for what should only go to God.

So the Lord is telling us this morning, ‘Fearing people is a dangerous trap but trusting the Lord means that you are going to be safe’. Today, redirect all your fears, all your need for appreciation and validation, redirect it to the feet of Jesus. Learn to trust Him and trust what He says, and trust what He wants to do in your life, because the bible says, ‘Trusting the Lord means safety.