Trusting Jesus

All my life, whenever I've sat in church or listened to other Christians talk, they've talked about trusting Jesus. It always seemed to me an elusive idea. Trust Jesus? I understand the spiritual thing--even though Jesus died, He's alive. But still how do you wrap your mind around what it means to trust Jesus. I won't pretend that this is all there is to it (I'm not even talking here about trusting Jesus for salvation), but on a very practical level, this is one aspect.

When you look in the Gospels, Jesus talks about two different Kingdoms: the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of the world. Each kingdom has different values. The world values money, power, success, charisma and performance. The Kingdom of Heaven, on the other hand, values powerlessness, servanthood, selflessness and authenticity.

Since the world is always in our face and filling up our senses, guess which values we gravitate toward? I think anyone who pays attention to life knows we tend to gravitate toward the world's way of thinking and doing. We want to be in power, we want to have the upper hand, we strive for success and money. But Jesus calls us to something different.

In many ways, He teaches the two kingdoms as diametrically opposed and it's easy to see why--their core values are completely opposite each other. For instance, we see in Matthew 20:25-28, Jesus says, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Here's where, it seems to me, trusting Jesus comes in to play. Do we really believe that His way--the Kingdom way-- is the better way? Do we put all of our eggs in the "heaven" basket? I suspect that many of us kind of trust Jesus and His teachings here. We'll serve people to a point, but just in case, we'll hold something back, just in case the servant thing doesn't work out. I can focus on money just a little bit. I'll follow Jesus' teachings and example, but I'l keep a little back just in case His way doesn't really make me happy.

Trusting Jesus is living life sold out to the Kingdom of Heaven way of doing things. It's believing that if I give up my life, my preferences, my comfort, my rights, everyone will be blessed--including me. The hard part about it is that I really have to walk through that door to find out the blessing. If I wait to see proof before I begin to serve, I'll never do it. But once I begin to give myself up, I'll start to see that Jesus was right afterall.