What Does It Mean to Trust Jesus?

There is a difference between believing something is true and trusting ourselves to it.

We make that distinction all the time.

You can believe a doctor is qualified without following the doctor’s advice. You can believe an airplane is capable of flying without ever getting aboard. You can know that someone is trustworthy without actually trusting that person with something important.

Something similar can happen with Jesus.

We can believe Jesus existed. We can admire His teachings. We can even become convinced that Christianity is true.

But trusting Jesus goes further.

Trust Becomes Personal

When Jesus called people to follow Him, He was not simply asking them to agree with a collection of ideas.

He was asking them to entrust their lives to Him.

That is why Christian faith is ultimately relational.

Trusting Jesus means beginning to rely upon who He is and what He has done rather than relying entirely upon ourselves.

It is the movement from I think this may be true toward I am willing to place my life in His hands.

Trust Begins With Grace

One of the easiest misunderstandings about Christianity is that we must first become good enough for God.

We imagine that if we improve ourselves, overcome enough failures, become more religious, or do enough good things, perhaps God will finally accept us.

The message of Jesus moves in the opposite direction.

The New Testament describes salvation as a gift of grace. Paul writes: “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God.”

Grace means that relationship with God does not begin with what we accomplish for Him.

It begins with what God has done for us through Jesus.

Life with God is received, not achieved.

Trust Includes Letting Go

Receiving a gift sounds simple.

But trusting Jesus also confronts something deeply rooted in us: our desire to remain in charge of our own lives.

Jesus’ invitation to follow Him means we are no longer saying, I will determine for myself what life is and how it should be lived.

We begin saying, Jesus, I am willing to learn life from You.

Christians sometimes use the word repentance for this change of direction. Repentance is more than feeling bad about things we have done. It is turning from life on our own terms and turning toward God.

Trust and repentance belong together: we turn from relying upon ourselves and begin relying upon Jesus.

Trust Does Not Require Having Everything Figured Out

Some people imagine they must resolve every question before they can trust Jesus.

But trust rarely works that way.

The people who first followed Jesus still had questions. They misunderstood Him. They struggled with fear. They sometimes doubted. They had much left to learn.

Their understanding grew as they followed.

Trust does not mean pretending there are no unanswered questions. It means becoming convinced enough about Jesus to begin placing our confidence in Him even while some questions remain.

Trust Is the Beginning, Not the Finish Line

Trusting Jesus is not simply a religious moment that happens once and then gets left behind.

It begins a new way of living.

Christians continue learning to trust Jesus with relationships, decisions, fears, ambitions, failures, money, forgiveness, the future, and the parts of life they would rather control themselves.

That learning takes a lifetime.

But it begins with a surprisingly simple movement:

from relying upon ourselves for life to receiving life from Jesus.