TRUST (Part 2)

Pastor Kunle Osunkunle

(President, The Singles Fellowship, The Fountain of Life Church)

Text: Psalms 125:1 (MSG)

From the above Bible text, we can see an illustration that God is consistent in His character in all situations. It is difficult and almost impossible for a marriage to grow and be successful without trust.

Answer this question???

Trust is a risk so much that you become vulnerable when you trust someone. A man that has not met God will be difficult to trust. Ordinarily, it is difficult to trust any man. When you are looking for someone to trust and marry, look for someone who has put His heart in God’s hands. You can trust someone who is spiritually minded; someone who is fulfilling the qualities of love which are written in 1 Corinthians 13. But never trust someone who is carnally minded; someone whose thoughts always center on carnality.

Relationship starts from the internal and not from the external. Don’t work from outside-in as most people always want to do. There are some people you think you know but in reality you don’t know them. So, you need God to reveal their inner minds to you in order to know them. The heart of man is very important when it comes to the issue of trust. Therefore during courtship, evaluate, discover and find out if his or her mind is stayed on God.

Someone who wants to please you at the expense of pleasing God cannot be trusted.

Another definition of trust is, it is firm reliance on the integrity, ability or character of a person or thing. You need to discover if the person has the capacity to be trusted and fulfill the marriage vow before you go to the altar.

Therefore, courtship is a period to discover his or her capacity for trustworthiness with the Holy Spirit being your partner. There are some things that your senses, intellect or emotions will miss. Such, your spirit should never miss.

When you say you trust someone, it implies you rely on the ability of the person to stand by his or her words. Trust doesn’t come with the commitment of relationship. It has to be built, strengthened and maintained daily by constant actions. You need to be consistent in your characters and integrity.

It takes time for trust to be built and it takes a long time to build it; while it takes just a short time to destroy it.

HOW DO WE DEVELOP TRUST

Galatians 5:6

Put your trust in God first...

1.       HAVE FAITH IN GOD: - We believe in God simply because we trust Him. The reason we trust Him is because we know He can never fail. And the reason we know He can never fail us is because He loves us. So, faith is as a result of love. Little children trust their parents explicitly because they know they love them. Just as faith works by love, trust also works by love. Without the love for God in your heart, Satan has in-route into your heart. This kind of love is God’s unconditional love. This kind of love develops trust. The person you show this kind of love (with the qualities in 1 Corinthians 13) will trust you. Note that, your partner will feel accepted and not rejected when you show this kind of love to him or her.

2.       COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY: - If you love someone, when you are together and you feel sexually aroused, you should express yourself and once you share your feelings; your partner will feel accepted and not rejected.

Communication helps trust. You should be able to communicate effectively when your actions change. Before you get marriage, trust should be established that is while you need time. If you give trust to someone who doesn’t deserve, you give him or her license to destroy you. If you want to get married, make sure you totally trust your partner.

When it comes to trust it has to be total. Just as total faith is required to receive anything from God; total trust is needed for a successful relationship.

When your trust is not total in a relationship you are double-minded. When you are double-minded you are wavering; when you are wavering you will not be able to get certain things you are supposed to acquire in the relationship.

You may be deceived if you trust too much; but you will live in torment if you don’t trust enough. If you don’t trust enough your love is not total and fear will set in and then result to torment and severe agony. The devil introduces fear once you don’t trust enough.

When you fail to totally trust your partner fear sets in. Once fear sets in, it leads to doubt and eventual accusation.

Trust is a responsibility. When you say you trust God, it means you put a responsibility on God that He is will do all He has said. Likewise, when someone trusts you, it is a responsibility that you will be faithful in your commitments to him or her. The vows you made on your wedding day, the promises you made to your husband or wife, the trust your children had in you in providing for their different needs are all examples of the responsibilities trust suggest to us.

Trust grows in an environment of love. When there is total trust there is safety and security. Psalms 62:8. When you trust there is fulfillment. Proverbs 31:10-27. Trust ensures that one is not hindered in a relationship and ensures that you fulfill your full potentials as no one is intimidated or suspicious. If you want fulfillment ensure there is trust in your relationship.

RESULTS OF LACK OF TRUST

1.       FEAR

2.       DOUBT

3.       ACCUSATION

4.       ANXIETY

5.       SUSPICION - You will be unnecessarily spying on your spouse. The attention and love will be viewed with suspicion. Everything he or she does will have a sense of strings attached.

6.       DESTRUCTIVE ARGUMENT – Since you are always arguing, little time will be spent in building the relationship.

7.       LOW SELF-ESTEEM - It diminishes people’s self-esteem. For someone who has been betrayed before, ordinarily, your defense is always high up. And probably as you go around not trusting people and if a good partner comes your way you may lose him or her.

Consider that the case of Jesus Christ, though He was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, He did not use him to judge and define the whole of humanity or stop from fulfilling His purpose. But rather empower the Church. Sometimes, you need to forgive, heal and move on in life. There are good and godly people that can be trusted.

In developing trust you must do the following:

1.       You must trust yourself. Work on yourself first. Proverbs 22:18. Don’t go out looking firstly for someone to trust. Rather, first of all consider if you can be trusted by someone else. Before you look for a good thing, ask yourself if you are a good thing. Before you point accusing fingers to someone, ask yourself if you can be trusted.

2.       Trust is earned and as you grow daily in it. Ensure you are always sincere and truthful. Don’t lie either deliberately or by omission.

3.       Do things daily to reinforce your trust in someone. Do not be excessive in your actions or attitudes towards someone.

4.       Always work on your communication skill to ensure effectiveness. Don’t give out intentions or say what you don’t mean. Always talk about your feelings every time. An abusive relationship is the one where you cannot talk about how you feel at any time. You must be able to talk and talk and bring how you feel about everything. Trustworthy people talk about everything.

5.       Avoid keeping secrets that is having emotional tone on you. To keep secret demands a lot of energy. Sin thrives in secrecy. If there is no love that will ensure trust is generated and developed in a relationship, there will be no protection of the lives involved.

6.       Don’t try to meet someone else’ needs in order to meet yours. Openly communicate to know what his or her needs are.

7.       Also, praying together will help develop trust. Though sex bond couples; but couples that pray more together talk much more and enjoy one another more. They also enjoy sex more. You need to ensure you always pray together.

8.       Make sure you resolve issues quickly. Don’t go to sleep on the same bed without resolving issues. Some people deny their spouses having sex or eating in the house because they are angry or they were wronged. Then, fear, doubt, accusation and insecurity set in. When there are issues, sit down and solve them otherwise the devil will build on them.

9.       Keep trusting in God so that you will not keep relying on suspicion. When you start to talk to God, He will start to reveal you certain things about Him. Keep the channel open to God. Don’t be anxious.

Karl S. Elvry says, “Trust enables you to put your deepest feelings and cares in the palms of your partner‘s hands knowing they will be handled with care.” Ensure that he or she is in God’s hands and that his or her heart is committed to God. Then you can commit your heart to him or her. God is the beginning and end of trust. A man or woman that has committed his heart to God can be trusted.

May the Lord help you.

TRUST (PART 1)

Pastor Kunle Osunkunle

(President, The Singles Fellowship, The Fountain of Life Church)

Text: Psalms 125:1 (MSG)

Mount Zion is a mountain that is immovable. Regardless the circumstance, situation or challenge, it always remains. Those who put their trust in God are like this Mount Zion. In spite of the storms of life, they cannot be moved. So, at every point in time, we can trust in God because we know His character that He can never fail.

The truth is, when you trust God based on His word that He cannot change and He can never let you down; then you will see Him do exactly what He says He will do.

TRUST

When you go into a marital relationship or get married to someone, you probably expect that you should trust one another.  When you take the marriage vow, you say that it’s for better or worse; it simply implies that you are looking onto your spouse alone and that you will no longer focus on any other man or woman. So, you are not expecting infidelity from him or her.

There is no one that wants to marry someone who he or she cannot trust. The next closest relationship you will ever get to after your relation with God is the marriage relationship. As it is that you go into a covenant relationship with God at the time of salvation, the same way you establish a covenant relationship with your spouse when you marry him or her. And it is almost impossible to go into a covenant with someone you don’t trust.

Trust is a fundamental ingredient of any human relationship.  When you don’t trust your intended partner, there are certain issues that will ensue which will become suggestions towards distrust in your relationship. There are things you do while dating or in courtship with your intended partner that may result into distrust in marriage. For instance, premarital sex is a recipe for distrust in later years.

 Trust is one of the most important ingredients for a successful relationship. It is like salt; it gives your relationship the needed seasoning. Without trust it is almost impossible for a marriage to work. Don’t marry someone you trust 99.9% because the devil can work or wreck havoc with just 0.1%. Once he begins to work with 0.1% it becomes magnified. When you trust someone, you feel safe, feel connected and get closer. The closer you get to someone, the more trust you expect from him or her.

When you give trust to someone who doesn’t deserve it you actually give him or her power to destroy you. When you give your commitment to marry someone, you expect to feel safe with him or her. When you are in a relationship, you need to find out if you can trust your intended spouse or not. That is why courtship is a time for interview, to evaluate with focus and not a time for intercourse. When you start to sleep with the person, the discovery process stops. You don’t know whether you can trust him or her any more.

Many people are heart-broken because they didn’t discover if their intended spouse can be trusted before they gave out their heart to him or her. Before you give your heart to someone else, prove him trustworthy because your heart is very delicate. You cannot afford to give it to unproven person.

Trust is not what you get it is earned. Test all spirit. By the things he or she says, acts or think you can know whether he or she can be trusted. Trust is a living entity, breathing constantly in order for a relationship to survive. Trust has to be something you invest in on a daily basis.

WHAT IS TRUST?

1. Trust is putting confidence in someone that he or she will be honest to you at all times; being faithful, being loyal, being sincere and being dependable hoping that he or she will always tell you the truth (even in little things). This will result when you can be truthful to one another at all times. Someone who is truthful about his or her feelings when you are together can be trusted.  When you see someone who is truthful to himself or herself can be trusted. It implies that such can be loyal, faithful, constant and dependable at all times.

2. If someone can gossip about other people to you, he or she can gossip to others about you. Someone who is committed to his or her words can be trusted. Can he or she keep his or her promises? Someone who cannot keep his or her promises before marriage cannot keep marriage promises because marriage has gotten so many promises. Marriage is not only about the good times. Will he or she stay when bad times come? If you are in a relationship and you don’t have peace, you have to check it again.

3. Trust is not an emotion that you should give to someone based on what or how you feel. Emotions are not stable and you cannot base your decisions on what is unstable. No one gives trust, it must be earned. 1 Corinthians 4:2. For anyone to be trusted, he or she must prove himself or herself and earn it.

The way we have defined trust as putting confidence, being faithful, being loyal being dependable, you need to ask yourself sincerely; do you think someone is capable of doing all these all the time? Human nature is not capable, that is why we need to understand our limitations. Jeremiah 17:7. In your own strength, you cannot trust someone. Psalms 118:8; Micah 7:5 (NLT); John 2:23-25.

Marriage is committing your heart into another person’s hands. So, don’t give your heart to someone who has not earned your trust otherwise, you can be heart-broken.  There are some people who have died as a result of emotional break-down while some ran mad because they committed their lives into people’s hand that they don’t trust.

There are two reasons why you don’t trust people, namely:

1.       Because you know them. There are some people you know based on your experiences with them that they are not trustworthy. So, experience is important when it comes to the issue of trust. The reason for experience is because of the environment has a way it affects us. Where we grow up has a way of affecting us and determines how we trust people. Likewise, the way we have seen life affects whether we trust or not. There are certain people who have bad past and serious past hurts that have concluded that certain gender cannot be trusted or things should be hidden from certain gender.

2.       Because you don’t know them. Someone you are meeting for the first time is a stranger and you don’t know the person. So, it takes time to discover if someone is trustworthy or not.

Trust is a risk that makes you vulnerable because you put your heart in the hands of someone else. But, there is a wise way you can take the risk. We go through certain things in life that will make us ordinarily not to trust people.

HOW TO TRUST PEOPLE

1.    THROUGH THE WORD OF GOD: - To trust someone, you need to study the word of God diligently. Start to view or see people through the word of God. Some people have had bad experiences that only the word of God can heal them. Colossians 2:8. Regardless the terrible things you have gone through in life, you need to start to renew your life with the word of God. When you come to Christ, there is healing – intellectual, emotional and spiritual healing. The more you read the word of God, the more you see things in the proper perspective.

2.       INVESTIGATE INTO HIS/HER HEART: - The way your intended spouse’s heart is, that is the way he or she will treat your heart. What you don’t have you cannot give. If his or her heart is corrupt, he or she will corrupt yours. It is difficult to trust another man. So, when it comes to the issue of trust, the heart is to be considered. When you need to know whether to trust someone, investigate his or her heart. Remember, courtship is a time to interview and discover your intended spouse through thorough evaluations. Once you start to sleep together, you stop the discovery process and in the future you cannot trust the person.

3.        LOOK FOR GOD IN PEOPLE: - There is no one who is capable of being trustworthy. No one can be really trusted. But, a man or woman who commits to God is the one who can be trusted. Deep calls unto deep while shallowness calls unto shallowness. You can only marry at your level. When you take the decision to marry someone. It is based on the level of your spirituality at the time. Look for someone who is very devoted and committed to God. Devotion comes before duty. The man or woman who trusts God is the same who can be trusted. Even in marriage, there should be a constant devotion to God in the study of the word and prayers. The issue of mind renewal is constant. So, don’t take it for granted if your spouse stops reading the Bible. When you are dating, how does he or she handle the things of God? The way your spouse views or sees the things of God will determine how he or she will relate to you. If he or she doesn’t take the things of God serious, he or she may disappoint you.

4.       DOES HE OR SHE LOVES GOD: - Faith works by love. Galatians 6:5. So, you need to ask whether he or she love God. The person that loves God can be trusted. The person who loves God will abstain from sin and will never cut corners.

The Lord will help you and cause your life to glorify Him in Jesus’ name.