We went over definitions last week, and how trust is a modern concept of thinking and feeling. Modern day Bibles teach us to “trust God.” Many of us have built our belief system on top of “trust God,” even above faith and believe. But we’re really not going to get results by trusting. That’s the true A-bomb. Let’s look at more scripture:
1 Corinthians 12:8-9
8for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, 9to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit,
Through the Holy Spirit, I like that! We often refer to this as “special faith,” because it’s faith that comes through the Holy Spirit supernaturally to believe for something that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do on your own. But what we’re looking at is the word faith, there isn’t a gift called special trust. Which means, faith is pretty special.
Since faith is special, and we’re never actually told to trust. Let’s look at faith in Hebrew!
Faith in Hebrew is aman, which was defined in the previous post. The KJV translated aman as believe 39 times, and trust 6 times in the Old Testament. It means be built up as in support, like a pillar. Don’t forget we’re using ancient words that have concrete meanings where you can use your 5 senses to interact with them. We can touch something we built up or a pillar of support and lean on it. Other words used for faith in the Old Testament are omen, which is from the word amen and means truth, and emunah, also from the word amen and means stable, firm, and truth. Trust is used 6 times as a translation for emunah, but most often it’s more translated as faith, 37 times.
The word faith actually means built up (in the literal sense) or supported. By what? You are to support God. WHAT?!?! I hear it already! We are being told to be a literal pillar that supports God’s Word. That’s exactly what faith is. Faith to the Hebrews was always a call to action, not an idea to mull around. Let’s look at some New Testament examples where we can see this point more clearly.
Jude 1:20
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
Romans 10:17
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Jude explains that you can build up holy faith, just like you build faith. Romans tells us that faith comes by hearing, not trusting or believing; but a real call to action, take your Bible out and read out loud so your own ear can hear. We talked about this in Mountain Moving Faith.
Let’s look at one example of what Jesus really had to say instead of trust.
Mark 2:5
NKJV: When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”
Hebrew: וכאשר ישוע ראה אמונתם אמר אל הנטול עונותיך מחולין לך
Hebrew Translation: Now when Yeshua saw their faith*, he said unto the disabled man, “Your iniquities are forgiven for you.”
Note in the Hebrew translation: “faithfulness” – Hebrew faith is both believing and doing (being faithful).
Jesus used the word emunah for faith. As we read above, this word means stable, firm, truth, and comes from aman meaning built up and pillar of support. We can read this scripture, “Now when Jesus saw their firm truth supporting God’s Word, He said…” That’s the entire description of what Jesus is really saying.
What am I trying to say??
I feel like that’s the big question here!
Trust means that something will happen based on reputation,
as opposed to believing that it happens based on building faith.
Let’s put these words into action. Do you believe that your pastor is a thief? Do you believe his wife is a thief? I hope you answered no, so we’ll go with a no. Would you sign your house, land, car, bank accounts, and all your assets over to your pastor to hold for a year? What if he passes away? Will his wife give you your things back? Hmm… What if he gets tempted and makes himself a loan? What if his wife has no money and you solved her problems? Now what? Now do you believe he’s a thief? No, you don’t. That’s the difference between believing and trusting. I fully support and uphold the idea that my pastor is not a thief. I have zero experience allowing him to hold a couple million dollars to trust that he will not touch a penny.
Ok, so I don’t have over 2 million, but my friend does, and he’d never let his pastor hold all his assets. Guess who he’d comfortably let hold 2 million and not lose a wink of sleep over it! Me. Why? We’ve been friends for over 10 years. He’s watched me hand a $6,000 check back, because the Lord said don’t take it. He’s watched people steal thousands and thousands from me, and I loved them in return. He knows I could have easily legally stolen at least $500,000 but I kept telling the person no and trying to talk to them about God while doing the right thing. That went on for over a year that I could have legally stolen it. My wealthy friend knew about it, and watched in amazement that I had zero temptation over it. Why? Because I love the Lord more than I care about money. A few years ago my friend put bags of money in my purse. I knew they were there, but never counted them and spend only $40. He asked me about it, and I told him I spent $40. He took the money out and counted it, just over $1000. He was angry at me for not spending it. I didn’t need anything! That’s just me! Now that I shared all of this about me, and yes there was a point to this, would you trust me to hold everything you own? Why not? I told you the honest to God truth about me. You believe I’m a thief? Of course not, you just don’t have that level of trust for me yet.
What would cause you to trust me? Building a rapport. You need to go through the same exact events over 10 years, that my friend did, to build your confidence in me.
And now I need to go humble myself! HAHAHAHA! I did think, “Hey, I’m pretty awesome.” Nah, there’s nothing wrong with that. We should all, as Christians, be doing the exact same thing.
This is the exact reason
you’re not told to trust God.
You don’t have to build a 10-year rapport with Him. He just said, “Hear My Word, believe My Word, support My Word like a pillar, and you’ll have it.” Our Bible translations have complicated this! Trust says, “God will do it, because I read it in the Bible.” That’s what we call “head knowledge.” That’s a feeling or emotion that’s reasoned out in your mind. Let’s look at the definition of trust again:
Meriam-Wester defines trust:
1. assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something
2. dependence on something future or contingent : HOPE
Faith is a call to action, “I will build up and uphold the Word of God in my heart so I can be stable.” Let’s look at the Bible defining faith in
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith is something real and tangible in the spiritual realm. Thayer’s Greek Lexicon gives this as one of the definitions of this common Greek word, “that which has foundation, is firm; hence, that which has actual existence; a substance, real being.”
We can read it like this: “Now faith is the firm foundation the actual existence of a real being of things hoped for…” When we have faith, something is actually physically building on the inside of us in the spiritual realm. We can’t see it. Most of us probably can’t feel it, but there is actual evidence in the spiritual realm. Let’s check out a few more scriptures that support this point.
Hebrews 4:12 NKJV
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Psalm 119:105
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Isaiah 55:11
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
John 6:63
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
The Word is real in the spiritual realm. Something that can be seen and possibly felt. We must remember that Hebrew was the original language of Adam that was created by God. If God wanted abstract concepts, and for us to understand His Word as metaphoric, He was and still is well able to accomplish that. God did NOT need to wait until the Greeks came about to create abstract and metaphoric meanings to His Word. I’d be willing to say, Moses, not understanding abstract concepts, parting the Red Sea was a little farther along than us. Growing up my pastor used to teach us, “You have to have wisdom to know when the Word is literal and figurative.” No! I just heard a recent teaching on Matthew 24:14, using the term teaching loosely, where the person stated that the Word doesn’t literally mean the Gospel preached to all the nations.
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
Sadly, this person probably doesn’t like to go out and evangelize. In addition to that, we should never dismiss the Word as metaphoric and figurative.
Growing up, I remember standing in my computer room telling God, “I can’t possibly trust you anymore than I already am. I am trusting with all my might! If you’re not going to answer my prayer, then I am not going to bother to pray.” I vividly remember that day. I’m sure the Lord does too, because I was way off where I should have been. I had next to zero faith. I read my Bible, but I could hardly quote 3 scriptures. I had no idea they were actual life-giving words. I had no clue I should have been mediating on them. No one told me why I should have given them a high place in my life. I was leaning completely on trust, and everything was a failure for me concerning God.
The reason why trust isn’t part of the faith process is because of how trust is earned, it’s not even built. Trust requires evidence, because it’s based on the character of a person. Let’s see the Meriam-Webster definition again.
Meriam-Wester defines trust:
1. assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something
2. dependence on something future or contingent : HOPE
As we already read in the previous post, faith is firmly upholding God’s Word. Back to the story where I talked about myself. My wealthy friend doesn’t ever have to see me turn down money again, watch me share things again when I have nothing, or see me forgive those that have stolen from me. We could not see each other for a year and think the very same thing of me. He would have to see me change character. On the flip side of this, faith is built up, used up, or even torn down. We read how faith comes by hearing. If you stop hearing you stop building your faith. If you left the presence of God for a year, your faith would be weak. No one leaves the presence of God and stays completely the same.
Faith is an action that requires building with the Word for what’s unseen.
Trust is a couch potato that is based on evidence of what’s been seen.
I hope this study was an Earth-shaking major eye opener to you as it was me. I felt like my foundation was completely crumbled beneath my feet when I learned the truth. But on the bright side, I started to have answer prayer, and be led by the Holy Spirit. It changed my life in a good way, and I hope the same for you!
Christi
My Prayer Notebook 
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