The Sacredness of Trust
Greetings and good morning brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series
where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years,
the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them
with you. This morning we will ponder our lives as we seek to understand the sacredness of trust.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Sacredness of Trust
"I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth
me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep." John, Chapter 10, Verses
14 and 15.
Brothers and sisters, a servant is loyal and trustworthy not so much because he fears a guilty
conscience of defaulting or of disappointing his master, but because he fears the consequences of his
acts. He may be dismissed from his position of trust. A servant may be counted on as long as his
duties do not conflict with his own. A servant's goal and his master's goal are not the same. A servant
receives a material reward for his efforts, but he has no intrinsic stake in the goals of his master
beyond the economic values.
A servant is not a germane member of the family of the master. He is forever outside of the flow of
loyalty and trust that comes directly from his master. The quality of his loyalty is limited. It can only
go so far. Fear transcends his loyalty to his master. Fear of loss, fear of pain motivates him, and he
will be found to be held tightly in its clutches. The hired hand runs away when the sheep are
threatened by the wolf. He fears the wolf more than he loves the sheep. The true shepherd lays down
his life in defense of the sheep. He loves the sheep more than he fears the wolf. The true shepherd
does not allow fear to defeat his trust.
The ability to transcend fear is wrapped up in spiritual living. This higher way of life is life in the
spirit. This is the life of the spiritual son that springs from the heavenly Father. This is a life that is
conscious of eternal life. This is a life that can transcend the life of a servant. A human being who
is indwelt by the spirit of the heavenly Father may choose to become a spiritual son, or he can remain
a servant. He is indeed conscious of the reality of God as law. He must serve the laws of God as long
as he is alive. And his only reward for doing so is that he is allowed to live until the effect of one of
the laws of the material world brings about his demise. He is indeed made to hear the voice of the
God, but it is not the voice of love and mercy, but the rigid unyielding voice of justice.
A human being may also choose to enter the spiritual life; he may choose to live on the spiritual level
even as he yields his material obedience to God as law. Yes, being a spiritual son does not exempt
him from the rigid unyielding laws of the material world of which he is apart, but it does allow him
to live simultaneously on the higher spiritual planes of life, the life of eternal love and endless mercy.
He can choose to transcend himself to become more than a man. He can choose to eternalize and
become an eternal son.
But how does the servant move from servant to the glorious status of son? How does he transcend
the ball and chain of servitude? How does he overcome the fear that enslaves him? How can he
vanish the fear of becoming a transient reality in the universe, one whose existence when compared
within the time of eternity is less than a speck of dust? How does he transcend the fear of material
loss by that all eclipsing sacred trust that is motivated by the love of the all loving and merciful
Father whose son he is?
The Father already indwells his mortal children. They make their sonship real by choosing to do the
Father's will, by choosing to become like the Father as revealed in His Son, Jesus. When the son
chooses to do the Father's will, he is born again. He transcends the limitation of servitude to the
glorious joy and privilege of executing his Father's glorious plan which he is apart of, and which he
definitely has a stake in seeing actualized. His love for the Father, and his gratefulness for the
Father's trust in him causes him to be motivated not by any material consequence of his action, but
by the spiritual sadness and pain that results from letting down someone who loves him so much,
and who trusts him explicitly. Yes, the son trusts the Father, but the Father also trusts the son. This
love and trust that the Father has for his son creates a loyalty that utterly transcends anything that the
servant can conceive. And the servant can never know this level of trust for the simple fact that it
can only be known by experiencing it.
The born again experience brings the soul into conscious existence, and thus allows the son to
experience spiritual reality. It allows him to operate in the spiritual world even while he renders to
Caesar the things that are Caesar. The born again experience creates a consciousness of eternal life
and spiritual invincibility. This makes the son more than a conqueror. For not only does he conquer
himself, but he makes the self, a material self, serve his higher interest with joy and pleasure. He
bears the beautiful fruits of the spirit.
The insights of the spirit led life soon reveal the mystery of fear. Fear is the province of a purely
material life. It is designed to allow the material self to prolong its life as long as materially possible.
Fear is an emotion, placed in the material self for survival purposes. Fear does not prevent the thing
from happening that one fears, and neither does it alleviate the thing once it happens. Unbridled and
complete fear destroys. Fear loses it power when the child of the Father realizes that fear has no
eternal import.
Fear loses its power when the son realizes that its only purpose is to warn him. Once having warned
the material reality, it serves no further purpose. Fear has no place or purpose in the spiritual life of
the soul. There is nothing to fear in the spiritual world. The material mechanism must continue on,
and fear of pain, fear of being ill, fear of dying, fear of being left alone, fear of not measuring up to
the challenge of life give way to the realization that though the material mechanism must pass away,
the true self, the soul, continues on a higher level of existence.
The spiritual son is free. He is free because he has surrendered all to the care of his all powerful, all
loving and all merciful spiritual Father. When he surrenders the object to which he fears the most,
fear loses the power to control him. When he realizes that fear does not change the laws of cause and
effect, and when he surrenders to this fact, fear loses the power to control him. When he surrenders
those things that he is trying so desperately to protect, fear no longer has any power over him. When
he shifts his loyalty to the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, fear loses its stranglehold upon him.
When he realizes the experience of eternal life, when he realizes that nothing of spiritual value is
ever lost or destroyed, or injured, fear evaporates. When he experiences the joys and assurances of
the Father's love, the shadow of fear is vanquished in the merciful and protecting light of the Father's
love.
When he finally realizes that he and the Father are one, that he is spiritually indestructible, the joy
of this discovery forever vanquishes the fear of fear. Fear is inconsistent with the wholehearted
dedication to doing the Father's will. Fear is inconsistent with sonship. One can only fear that which
one tries to protect or is afraid of losing.
Absolute surrender means surrender of absolutely everything. And when you lose everything, you
find that you gain everything in the eternal vastness of the Father's love. Pain and suffering endure
for a short while though the night of it might seem long, but eternal joy and happiness abound
forever.
There is no pain or suffering behind the emotion of fear that the Father is not able to empower the
son to sustain and overcome. And when one considers that the fear does not prevent the pain and
suffering, but indeed prolongs and heightens the sense of it, then fear becomes a commodity of no
value to the spiritual striving son. Trust in the Father's love and mercy, and dedication and loyalty
to the trust that the Father gives to his son as he carries out his ministry of love and mercy transcends
the fear of suffering and pain.
This trust when embraced by faith and love makes it utterly impossible for the true son to default on
the spiritual mission that the Father has sent him on. It is a mission involving eternal destinies, a
mission requiring courage and stamina, but the Father supplies all the spiritual needs to successfully
carry out this mission. This trust is valuable, and in the final analysis it is an eternal and infinite trust.
The sacredness of this trust derives from the truth that it is the heart of the Father of love. To default
on this trust breaks the heart of the Father of love and mercy.
This concludes today's message on understanding the sacredness of trust. We hope you find
something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day. Until next time, this
is Dr. James Perry.
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By Dr. James Perry
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The Sacredness of Trust
