FROM THE SERVANT GENERAL
OUR THEME FOR 2025
(Part 14)
TRUSTING IN GOD AND NOT IN MAN
February 16, 2025
Today’s readings:
Jeremiah 17:5-8
Psalm 1:1-4,6
1 Corinthians 15:12,16-20
Luke 6:17,20-26
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord.” (Jer 17:7). Only God is fully trustworthy. Only in God can we place our hope, because He Himself is hope. Tragically, many put their trust in human beings, including themselves. This is what the Lord says about them: “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord.” (Jer 17:5).
The contrast between trust in God and trust in man is staggering. The latter “is like a barren bush in the desert” (Jer 17:6a), while the former “is like a tree planted beside the waters” (Jer 17:8a).
One who looks to man ends up following the counsel of the wicked, walking the way of sinners, sitting in the company of the insolent” (Ps 1:1). We can find no blessing there. But “blessed is the man who follows not” (Ps 1:1) such men. Rather, such a man “delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night.” (Ps 1:2). Again, “he is like a tree planted near running water” (Ps 1:3a).
So “the Lord watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked vanishes.” (Ps 1:6). Who then would you put your hope in?
Now there will be challenges in life. The authentic Christian life is not a bed of roses. There will be challenges, affliction, pain. How can we endure and persevere? All the more we look to our hope in Jesus. And indeed, Jesus pronounces the Beatitudes. For those who hope in him, any suffering will be salvific.
“Blessed are you who are poor” (Lk 6:20b). Why? How? “For the kingdom of God is yours.” (Lk 6:20c). Those who have nothing in life but put their hope in God will inherit what is truly worthwhile, which is eternal life.
Blessed are those who are hungry and who are now weeping (Lk 6:21), because if their hope is in God, then it is God who will satisfy their deepest needs and longings, and who will be their consolation.
Further, “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you, and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.” (Lk 6:22). How can that be? We all want to be loved, to be accepted, to have good relationships. But Jesus, who himself was treated vilely by the world, says that if we follow him and live his way of life, we would be treated in the same way. So do we want that kind of life? Well, not only should we embrace such an authentic Christian life, but we should “rejoice and leap for joy on that day? (Lk 6:23a). We are not just to accept our fate, perhaps grudgingly, but we are to celebrate. Why? Because “your reward will be great in heaven.” (Lk 6:23b).
Our hope in Jesus gives us the Kingdom, allowing us to attain to the reward God intends for us, which is heaven. And so our hope in the Lord is not just in this life, for “if for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all.” (1 Cor 15:19). Why? Because there is life after life in this world, and that life is eternal. There are modernists in the Church at the highest level who claim that when we die, we just go “poof,” that is, we just disappear and become nothing. If so, there is no hope of eternal life, of life that is after death. That is indeed pitiable.
Hope abounds, and such hope is in Jesus.
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