Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
“Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of?”
God, in Isaiah 2:22
“During the Passover feast, while he was in Jerusalem, many people believed on his name, seeing the miracles that he performed. But as for Jesus, he did not trust himself to them because he knows all men, and he had no need for anyone to testify to him about mankind, for he himself knew what was in man.”
John 2:23-25
One of the many lessons contained in the revelation given to me in August of 1981 is this: You will never be deceived by anyone you do not trust. This truth can be restated this way: Only someone you trust can deceive you. The principal issue in life, then, is to discover who it is that you can trust.
The first step in the process of finding a man you can trust is to know, to truly know in the deepest place of your heart, that you can trust Jesus. Jesus will never deceive you, never lie to you, never rob you of the things you need to be happy. And this is only true because Jesus loves you more than he loves himself.
The next step in the process is to understand that you can trust no one, not even the people in this world who love you, unless they love God and love you the same way Jesus does. There is a natural, human love, apart from the love of God, and it can bring us some earthly benefits to be loved that way by men. But even those who love us that way cannot be fully trusted when it comes to life’s most important matters. They will try to do us good, just as Jesus’ disciples tried to do him good before they received the holy Ghost. But when we need most to be loved, and need to be loved most truly, we will always find that human love comes a little short. People who can love only with their own human spirits, ultimately and always love themselves more than they can love us.
Long ago, God warned His people of the deficiency of human love, and the danger of trusting one’s heart and life to it. He said through the prophet Micah, “Trust not in a friend; put no confidence in a guide [minister]; keep the doors of your mouth from her that lies in your bosom [wife]. For the son dishonors the father, and the daughter rises up against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies are the men of his own house.” (7:5-6). In consideration of this warning, Micah responded by determining to take this wise course: “Therefore, I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me” (7:7).
In determining to do this, Micah did not mean that he would trust no one but God. For example, Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah, Hosea and Amos, and I feel certain that he knew he could trust those humble servants of God. Micah must have known that God had made some other people trustworthy besides Micah. By “waiting for the God of his salvation”, then, Micah was waiting for God to give him friends, for God to give him guides, and for God to give him a wife. Micah knew that only God can see the hearts; therefore, what Micah was waiting on God for was to put the people in his life that he could trust.
It is also important to understand that it was only because Micah fully trusted God, not because Micah hated people, that he refused to fully trust anyone other than the ones God would give him. God was not being cruel and sarcastic when He spoke through Micah, “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of?” He was speaking out of great love for His children, to warn them to do as Micah decided to do, and wait on Him to give them their companions in this life. If we don’t do that, we are setting ourselves up for a lot of hurt and disappointment.
Your experience has been the same as mine. You have trusted at times ordinary men with ordinary things and not been harmed by doing so. My father told me that a mother’s love is the closest thing on earth to the love of God, and that observation has proved itself to be true many times. But it is foolish to trust your life, or any of its most precious elements, to anyone who does not have the love of God in himself, or herself, so that he loves God more than he loves you. If anyone, on the other hand, does love God more than he loves you, he is like Jesus, and you can trust him. You can trust your life and everything in it to anyone who has been transformed by the power of God’s love into the image of Christ Jesus, who loved God above all things, even his own life, for our sake.