Confidence in Christ alone, leads to confidence in His followers!

I preached the funeral of a friend and trusted servant of the Lord last week. I had the opportunity to participate in a very large service attended by hundreds at our church, as well as sharing a few words at a family cemetery in another town. For the shorter graveside service, I simply read Psalm 146 and was particularly struck by vs. 3ff.

3 Do not put your trust in princes,
Nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help.
⁴ His spirit departs, he returns to his earth;
In that very day his plans perish. (NKJV)

I read the entire Psalm and shared about two minutes of comments on how we can love people and depend on or trust them, but our hope must ultimately be in the Lord! I was myself ministered to by this truth, especially as it relates to the loss of this faithful and important servant in our church, who I trusted with very much. Just as God provided him to meet very important roles in his family, community and our church and he met them faithfully in the Lord's power, God can/will now provide for all those needs in some new way through some other people. As great a blessing as this man was, he was still a gift of God and God never runs short of gifts!

At the same time I am preaching through 2 Corinthians and am this week covering ch. 7:13 -16. I am again blown away by God's word as in vs. 16 Paul declares of this formerly wayward church -

16 Therefore I rejoice that I have confidence in you in everything. (NKJV)

A faithful and trusted servant could only be trusted properly, because he was serving the Lord and it is understood that he was a gift from the Lord. Likewise, the wayward, but now repentant Corinthians, could be trusted by Paul, simply because Paul trusts first in the Lord and they have demonstrated that they too belong to and trust in the Lord!

The rest of Psalm 146 reads as follows -

⁵ Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help,
Whose hope is in the Lord his God,
⁶ Who made heaven and earth,
The sea, and all that is in them;
Who keeps truth forever,
⁷ Who executes justice for the oppressed,
Who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord gives freedom to the prisoners.

⁸ The Lord opens the eyes of the blind;
The Lord raises those who are bowed down;
The Lord loves the righteous.
⁹ The Lord watches over the strangers;
He relieves the fatherless and widow;
But the way of the wicked He turns upside down.

¹⁰ The Lord shall reign forever—
Your God, O Zion, to all generations.

Praise the Lord! (NKJV)

"Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved."