The Faith to Follow

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, December twenty-ninth. Today's program highlights Proverbs three to help you develop the faith to follow wherever God leads. It's an act of God's grace that He has chosen a plan for your life and mine. Wonderful grace of God that He has chosen a plan and is willing to show us what that plan is. So, we don't have to go through life wondering, is my life going to count? What am I doing with myself?

What do others think? And all of that. God in His awesome grace has a plan and a purpose for your life. And therefore, He has a pathway for you to walk. Because if He has a plan, there's a path. Most people are going to live out their life never even thinking the fact that God has a will for them or a plan for them. And they'll live it all out and come maybe toward the end of their life or maybe a few years before that. And look back and think, what was all that about?

What did I miss? Where was God in all of this? And I can tell you, God knew from the very beginning His plan and purpose and will for your life. The sooner you discover what that pathway is, you get on His path, then the sooner and the better and the happier and the most peaceful and the more prosperous you're going to be in your life no matter what's going on.

But, you have to believe that. You have to believe that God loves you enough to have a plan. He loves you enough to get you into the plan. He has a pathway that's the best path for you if you're willing to follow it. One of the most familiar verses in the Bible or passages is in Proverbs chapter three. And I want us to read these first eight verses. Look, if you will, beginning in verse one of Proverbs chapter three. He says, My son, do not forget My teaching.

What a wonderful way to begin. But let your heart keep My commandments. For length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.

So, how you live makes a difference. Do not let kindness and truth leave you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart.

So you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and man. And now listen to this. You should memorize this.

Watch. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will do what? He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

It will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones. Now here's God's command to us. It's one thing for Him to be willing to guide me.

It's one thing for me to listen. But am I willing and truly, truly willing to follow that? That is, am I willing to trust Him?

Watch this. If you don't obey God, it's because you don't trust Him. Whatever else you may say, you don't trust Him.

Because He always chooses what's right and what's best for us. And so if we believe that God is who He says He is, we'll trust Him. So with that in mind, I want us to think about this passage of Scripture, and that is that God commands us to trust Him.

Listen to what He says. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. To trust somebody is to have a strong belief in their integrity, their ability, and their character. If I really and fully trust them, all three of those things are going to be involved.

So think about this. When a person lives a life of sin, whatever else you may say, they're living a life in which they do not trust God. And so the truth is if I don't trust Him, nothing in my life's going to work out right.

And the reason people are living the lives they're living outside of God's will and purpose of their life, they don't trust Him. If I trust Him, and this is Almighty God, if I trust Him, I'm going to do what He says. Now, either you believe what He says, you trust Him, or you don't.

Now, you can color it up and massage it and do all kind of things to it, but either you trust Him or you don't. So what's the basis of this trust? Listen, He says, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't lean to your own understanding. So what's the basis of this? You're listening?

Watch this. The basis of all of our trust of God is His divine sovereignty, which means God rules over all things, all people at all times. This is the wisdom of God, the power of God, the righteousness of God all wrapped up in one. His purpose is always perfect for you.

His goal for you is perfect. And the basis of my trust is, listen, watch this. If I didn't believe in the sovereignty of God, I could question His will about things. But because He is sovereign, He knows everything about every situation, past, present, future, that no surprises to God. And He has always chosen the best for us. Did I say that what we consider the best always works out for us?

Well, from our point of view, it would not. Because sometimes when things come our way that bring illness or bring trouble and heartache that we had nothing to do, we'd say, well, God's not in that. And it's amazing how on the other side of heartache, on the other side of trouble, on the other side of death, we see the hand of God. So therefore, because He absolutely rules in every circumstance of life and over all the circumstances of life, I can absolutely trust Him in every single circumstance of life because they all fit into the fact that He is sovereign and in control of everything.

What an awesome sense of confidence we can have. Because God is the sovereign God of the universe, not just of our life. He's in control of all things.

And you say, well, now wait a minute. If He's in control of all things, why does He let this happen and that happen and the other happen? The simplest example of that would be Joseph, for example. If God was sovereign, why did he let his brothers throw him in the pit? Why did he get sold into slavery? Why did he end up being falsely accused by Potiphar's wife? Why did he end up in prison?

I'll tell you why. Because in the sovereignty of God, God was equipping him to be next to Pharaoh and all of Egypt, the greatest nation on the earth at that point. And so, you and I can trust Him in every single circumstance of life no matter what it might be. Because He's not only a sovereign God, He is a loving, trustworthy, sovereign God.

He's not just this being out yonder, He has personhood. He's a personal God, loving God, God of grace and love and mercy and kindness, and has a pathway for each one of us to walk if we're wise enough to follow Him. So, when He asks us to follow His path, we must believe that He's chosen the right path.

He knows your abilities, talents, skills, and all the things that make up your life. If I trust Him, I trust Him on the basis that He's the Son of God. I trust Him on the basis that He's the sovereign God of this universe. Now, if He's the non-sovereign God, He is that and He's always been that, and He doesn't change. If God changed things, then we'd have a reason to doubt and question what He says. Because He says in this passage, trust in the Lord with all your heart, don't lean on your own understanding. My own understanding will never match the sovereignty of God. My own understanding will never match the sovereignty of God. My own understanding of God is trustworthy.

If we listen to Him, what follows that? I must be willing to trust Him. And the basis of that trust, watch this, is who He is, not who we are.

So, that puts it on a whole different level. I can trust Him because of who He is. The third thing I want you to notice about this passage is this, watch this. It says, "'The degree to which I am to trust Him is with all my heart, and not to lean on my understanding, with all my heart.'"

That means totally. I trust Him about a few things, but everything. Let me ask you a question. What is it in your life that's the most difficult when you've faced a particular issue, what's the most difficult one you have to deal with when it comes to trusting Him? People have different things in their life, different situations and circumstances. But you know that God's trustworthy, and He has a plan for your life. And if you listen to Him, He'll show you what to do, and He'll always show you the right thing to do every single time.

The question is, to what degree? Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. Now, think about this for a moment. Our understanding is limited. I can't see beyond right now the walls of this room. God can see all the way to the other end of the earth. There's some things we don't understand, but I'm to trust Him. Watch this, I'm to trust Him even when I may not agree with something. And somebody says, well, if you trust Him, won't you always agree? I think the Lord's allowed things in my life to happen that I thought, Lord, now wait a minute. I'm trusting You, but this stings, this hurts, this pain.

And so, there are times we get tested. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean now to your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight. And what He's asking is, not only to trust Him, but in all your ways, acknowledge Him. That is, to acknowledge somebody is to recognize Him. To acknowledge God is not only to recognize Him, but to recognize Him as God, as Lord, as Master, as the One who has the right to give direction for our life, and the Lord who has the authority to send blessing upon us when He chooses to do so. So, ask yourself the question, is there one single area in your life that you're sort of holding back on? In all your ways, acknowledge Him. You say, well, I have, but there's just this one thing.

And I think it's that one thing in many people's lives that absolutely causes them more pain than they could ever possibly realize. Total surrender, absolute surrender, complete surrender means I must trust Him completely. I must trust Him absolutely because we're limited in our knowledge and our understanding. We can't see the future.

We don't do very well looking at the past. And so, in all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight. Now, what does He mean by making your path straight? Well, this is a very important part of this passage. He says, I'll make your path straight. You know what that means? I will protect you from the side roads in life.

I'll protect you from those areas that you think are a part of the trip, that are not a part of the trip. And so, He says, in all of our ways, we are to acknowledge Him, and He'll make our path straight. That is, He will eliminate a lot of obstacles, eliminate a lot of confusion, eliminate a lot of wear and tear on your life. And I think about people who are not saved and they live till they get about sixty or somewhere in their belts and they get saved. Look at the wear and tear on your life.

Look what you've missed. When He says, I'll make your way straight, that doesn't mean that, listen, straight doesn't always mean easy, but straight is the best way. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. He'll make your path straight. There are a lot of people who are hurting today because they decided, I'm not going on that path, I'll choose my own path.

What they're saying is, watch this, I really believe that I'm smarter than God. I really believe that the path that I've chosen will bring me more happiness, more joy, more peace, and especially more prosperity. So, I'm taking this path. Everything that looks golden is not golden. Everything that looks straight is not straight.

It may be straight for a few feet, but after that, you're off the path. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, He says, and He will direct your path. Now, there's a warning here I want you to notice. He says, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. But I want you to turn, if you will, to Proverbs twenty-six. Proverbs twenty-six, and I want you to look at this verse. Here's the warning, Proverbs twenty-six verse twelve. Do you see a man wise in his own eyes?

There is more hope for a fool than for him. And here's what God says. When we choose our way, that is not God's way, we are playing the fool.

You know people in your life who've done that and who are doing it. Deciding they're going to have it their way no matter what. Never thinking about God's way, God's will, God's power, and never thinking about a judgment day. Because no matter how life treats you, ultimately every single one of us are going to come to that point in life when we meet the living God before whom we've lived all these years. And when I think about so many people who live their life that way, He says, do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. That's what a wise man or woman does. They seek the Lord, they listen to God. Listen, not only do they realize that God will lead them, but He will lead them. And they listen to Him and they trust Him.

It's the trust level. Do you trust Him to be to you what He promises to be? God cannot lie. Whatever God says is true, is true. And so, at some point in our life, we're all going to give an account.

And therefore, when He says, fear the Lord and turn away from evil, He says, do not be wise in your own eyes. And so, at some point in our life, we're going to honor Him as the living God and to obey Him, to recognize who He is and to acknowledge that He's the God of this universe, but He's the God of your life and mine. Every single day, you and I make decisions.

We're forced to make decisions and we choose to make decisions. We believe that He has a plan and a path for our life, whether we believe that He's chosen the best path, and He has, and whether we are willing to listen to Him and willing to trust Him. In all Thy ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your path. And listen, He says, fear the Lord.

Let's honor Him. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. He says, do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and He will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones, which is what He's saying is this. It's healthy to live in obedience to God.

It's healthy. There's going to be a happiness and a health and a joy and a peace when you live in the pathway that God has laid out for you. It's going to be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones. It's going to be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones.

That's what you're doing. If it's God's choice, there's going to be an underlying sense of peace and assurance and confidence, a sense of satisfaction when you do it His way. It will be healing to your body and He said, refreshment to your bones. So, let's simply ask you a question. I have confidence in Him that His decisions about my life are the best decisions, the wisest decisions, the most profitable decisions, the most freeing decisions, and the happiest decisions if I trust Him. Amen?

Father, how grateful we are that You made Your plan so simple. Listen to You, trust You, and then obey You. And I pray this morning that somebody here who has never trusted You as their Savior will realize they've chosen the wrong path. You're not going to force them to get off that path onto Yours, but You invite them to make that change. You invite them to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, and in so doing, You place their feet on the right path.

And then You're willing to walk with them, run with them, whatever it may be, all the days of their life. And I trust that that person, whoever he or she may be, that today they take this moment to say, Lord Jesus, I'm listening. I do believe that You died on the cross for my sins. And today I confess that I'm a sinner.

And I also confess the beginning right now. I'm confessing You as my Savior and my Lord based on what You did at the cross. And I receive Your gift of salvation this day and this moment, I trust You, dear Father. Thank You, Lord, that You've never turned anybody down who came to You. You're willing to put every person on the right pathway who's willing to listen. Let us not be one of those that You call a fool, but one whom You call wise, is my prayer in Jesus's name. Amen. Thank you for listening to The Faith to Follow. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.