"The Expextant Heart"

"Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the LORD." (Psalms 4:5) Here we have a challenge set before us; which is much like God would be saying, Prove Me, and see My strength! It really is about how much trust Him to not only be our provider, but also that He is our Rewarder of good works! This is not about works for salvation, because we know that no one is justified by their works; but rather, this is about works of gratitude for Him loving us, and the pleasure we get from knowing that we are pleasing in His sight. To put this in the most simple terms that I can: This is our responsibly duty, if we are going to put our trust in Him! In other words; how can we say that we trust Him, and yet, we cannot be trusted to obey Him? In a certain way, what we are talking about is a mutual agreement between our conscious spirit and a Holy God; whereas, we are expecting God to fulfill His promises, therefore we strive to fulfill that which is expected of us. Although there really is no comparison between what He has done and what we can do; His reward is eternal; our sacrifices are but for a moment. This is the perspective that comes with knowing who we are in Jesus Christ: that we are created in Him as a living sacrifice unto good works; not because we can, or that we must; but it is our reasonable service as we put all of our trust in Him for His protection and for His provisions for this life. Basically, what I see David saying here, is that if we offer the sacrifices of righteousness, then we can put our trust in God for His provisions and protection. Does that mean that God will not protect us if we don't? NO! I don't think it works quite like that; but we may not like the journey we experience along the way, as much as we would if we did! When we are not fulfilling our part of the agreement, He will still fulfill His agreement to get us through to the other side; we just may not enjoy the storm along the way as much as we would if we had all of our trust in Him. This is about our heart, and the ability that we have to trust Him with all of it!!! If we are not surrendered to Him, then how in the world can we even pretend that we have all of our trust in Him; it just does not make any sense!!! It's like saying, I trust that I can fly, but yet you don't have any wings! If we are fulfilling our part of the agreement, or the covenant, however you which to accept it, we can have an expectant heart that He will fulfill His! We trust in Him, in and through all things; knowing that no matter what is happening in our lives, that anything which seems like a trial or adverse circumstance, is no our fault; therefore, we can have joy through anything, because all of our trust is in Him! And when I say all, I mean every bit of doubt has been erased, because we know that He is our wings!!!