Commiting to Trust

Leslie Basham: Karen Loritts has learned what it means to trust, even in a crisis.

Karen Loritts: Take whatever stuff you’re going through and lay it on the altar. For me, what I needed to do, I needed to take our crisis and lay it on the altar and tie that baby down because I kept going to the altar and taking it back off the altar.

Leslie: Janet Parshall was in the audience that night and said that Karen’s message taught something important about humility, about being real.

Janet Parshall: You don’t just arrive and say, “Ta-da! We've got it all together in Christ Jesus.” It's a moment by moment, day by day surrendering and submitting and trusting. And I appreciated the fact that she reminded us of regardless of where we are in life, what stage of womanhood we are at right now, what season we are at, those are universals, and they’re constants in our lives

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Tuesday, September 8, 2015.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Yesterday, we began hearing a message that Karen Loritts delivered at a True Woman Conferences. If you missed it part one, do yourself a favor and listen to it at Revive Our Hearts.com. Regardless of what season of life you may be in, I think you’ll relate to the fear and worry that tempted Karen. 

Yesterday, Karen Loritts told us that someone close to her family caused a lot of pain and grief. She faced a big decision, would she trust in the Lord with this situation?

As you listen, let me encourage you to ask yourself, “Is there any area in which I’m tempted to not put my trust in the Lord?” 

We’ll begin by reviewing a little bit of what we heard in part one of this message.

Karen: “Be filled,” Ephesians says. “Be filled and controlled.”

It’s a moment by moment experience. And to be honest, a lot of my time after those days of hearing this dreadful news against our family, against our children, was that I was acting really in the flesh. I didn't say any bad words, but I had bad thoughts. I really wanted to hurt somebody. I really wanted . . . you know, if I could have put some curses on them, I would have. At that time, I was standing out. The Holy Spirit was not controlling me.

“Be controlled.” In my confusion and weariness, I had to call on the Lord. “Lord, forgive me—and I named specifically—my heart, my anger, my bitterness against this person.” And I said, “Lord, You knew this all along. You’ve watched this. So I confess.”

The power of the Holy Spirit is not only being filled and controlled, but it’s also being fruitful. The Holy Spirit produces the fruit. We know in Galatians 5:22–23, those nine fruits. They come and tell us that they’re the believer’s source in God. The three say, “Love, joy, and peace.” Express love. Express and embrace joy. Express and experience the peace that only God could give.

You understand what I'm saying, Lord, when it says my love, sacrificially loving your husbands.  

Some of you ladies have husbands that may have lost their jobs. I've seen this. Some in my circle of friends have lost their jobs, and I have seen women walking away from their husbands. They are not sacrificially loving their husbands, but when you are being fruitful, you love and express joy.

Those of you who are single, I understand that your heart's desire is maybe to be married. But joy says when you are fruitful, that even though I'm always a bridesmaid and never a bride, I'm going to embrace joy.

And peace—is there too much month at the end of the money? God says experience His peace that He's able to do that.

The other parts of the things that we can experience, things that the Holy Spirit produces, is reaching out to others through patience and kindness and goodness, lovingly enjoying that prodigal child, showing patience.

You may have been the second or third or not even a choice of your in-laws to be a daughter-in-law. They love the other girl more than they loved you. A woman that is bearing fruit shows kindness and goodness. That person that has wronged and violated our family, goodness says that I still reach out to them in spite of what they have done to us.

The last part of the fruit that we see in Galatians as believers, we are to have good conduct through faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, not being bitter, being considerate and disciplined.

For me, self-control is . . . I was out of control. I was out of control when word got to us. And seven months later, I'm seeing the fruit of my allegiance to God and what He's brought to me, and it's been hard, very, very hard.

And a godly woman, a true woman, trusts in the peace of Christ. She trusts in the power of the Holy Spirit to be filled, to be fruitful, but last, she trusts in the presence of God.

Psalm 37, a very familiar passage. Psalm 37, verses 3, 4, and 5 says,

Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He will do it (NASB).

Ladies, I am determined to wait on the deliverance of God. I'm saying that now, but I couldn't have said that even a month ago. It is hard waiting when you are going through something, to wait. My questions, first of all: “God, why us?” We have sons in ministry, our girls are doing great. We have great grandchildren. Why? Why me? I'm driving down the street to my BSF class, studying the book of John, asking why, crying—I can't even see the stoplights—crying, crying, crying saying, “God, why us? Pick on somebody else.” (Laughter)

But God has a way. When He serves up a crisis buffet, He always says, “Wait 'til the dessert bar.” The dessert bar may come later, but it's coming. It's the good news of God. So as I'm trusting in the presence of God, God says several things from this passage in Psalm 37.

He says, “Trust in the Lord and do good.” Cultivate faithfulness. Ladies, I have to tell you, even with all these things in my house, with the crosses, with the Scriptures on the wall, even with that trust sign staring at me and talking to me, I have to cultivate faithfulness. Don't run. Stay the course, and fight the battle.

Are you tired of fighting the battle for your husband? Are you tired of fighting the battle for some peace in your home, jobs, or whatever your crisis you are going through or that you will go through, are you battle ready?

I had to admit to God, “God, I thought I was cultivating faithfulness. I’m reading my Bible every day, loving my husband, speaking truth.” I was doing all the right things. The only thing God said was, “Wah, wah, wah.” (Laughter)

Cultivate faithfulness. Do you know, one of the scary things about this thing of cultivating faithfulness is that I had to be a big girl to my children. They look to us, the big people who have been walking with Jesus a little longer and to see “Do you really believe what you say you believe?” Cultivate faithfulness.

I had to fight the battle, pray those defensive prayers. I said, “No, no, no, God, we’re not going down this way. We are not going down this way.

The next thing He says in Psalm 37 is, “Delight in Him and He will bless you.” Delight is to give great pleasure, and adore God. I love God. I adore Him. He saved me. He loves me. He continually puts up with me.

A couple more things . . . He says, “Commit your way to God.” This is the hard thing for me; it could be a hard thing for you to take whatever stuff you are going through and lay it on the altar.

For me, what I needed to do was I needed to take our crisis and lay it on the altar and then tie that baby down because I kept going to the altar and taking it back off the altar. (Laughter)

The presence of God says, “Commit your way to God and lay it on the altar and walk away.”

“But, God, You need my little help!”

“No, Karen, I don't need your help.”

“But, God, if You did it this way, or, God, if You just hurt that person just a little bit (laughter) . . . don't kill him . . . just a little bit.”

Commit it to God, and then last, I want you, if you mark in your Bible, it says in verse 5, “Commit your way to God,” and mark this, “Trust also in Him and He will do it.” Trust in Him, and God's going to act.

That was the message of that little trust sign. That trust sign, if it was made out of neon lights, it would have been flashing. Trust. It simply says trust, and He will act. Trust, and He will act. Trust, and He will act. Don't put any time on God.

Those are my simple things I'm walking through right now. I'm trusting in the peace of God. There is no peace other than the peace of God, peace of Christ.

Trust in the power of the Holy Spirit. Without Him, I would have melted away. I would have stayed in bed and not got out because it was just too hard to get up every morning and deal with what the crisis was going to be.

And then trust in the presence of God. Am I burdened still? Yes, I am still burdened. I have no idea where this will all end up. Has my joy been waning? Honestly, yes. I have a good face sometimes, but if you could see my heart, my heart breaks for my children. My heart breaks for the future of our family. My heart breaks for this other family. My heart is broken. But God's a good God, and according to the Word of God He says, “Don't be a fool, be a wise woman because you will be delivered.”

Do you want to be delivered? You have to trust and obey. You have to trust and obey.

Let me read to you what Max Lucado wrote about our great God. He says,

Praise to God! You are a great God. Your character is holy. Your truth is absolute. Your strength is unending. Your discipline is fair. You are a great God. The mountain of Your knowledge has no peak, the ocean of Your love has no shore, the fabric of Your fidelity has no tear, the rock of Your Word has no crack.

You are a great God. Your patience surprises us. Your beauty stuns us. Your love stirs us. You are a great God. Your provisions are abundant for our needs. Your light is adequate for our path. Your grace is sufficient for our sins. You are a great God.

We even declare with reluctant words, “Your plan is perfect.” You are never early, never late, never tardy, never quick. You sent Your Son in the fullness of time and will return at the consummation of time. Your plan is perfect . . . bewildering, puzzling, troubling, but it's perfect.

Ladies, I commit to trust and obey God.

Nancy: That’s Karen Loritts. She’s been describing the deep hurt someone caused to her family. And she’s been telling us about the choice she’s making.

I wonder if that is a decision you need to make? To consciously decide, through all the fear and hurt and emotions . . . I will trust in You, O Lord.

Before we hear that brief interview, I want to tell you how to get a copy of that message by Karen. When you’re in the middle of a crisis, I hope you’ll have this CD or DVD ready. Karen will remind you of the truth you can rely on. Or perhaps you know someone who needs to hear this message and you wan to get them a copy.

We’ll send you this message from Karen on either CD or DVD when you support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts with a donation of any amount. We’ll send one copy per household and today’s the final day we’ll be telling you about this offer. So don’t put it off.  Ask for “A True Woman Learns to Trust” when you call 1–800–569–5959, or visit ReviveOurHearts.com. You can make your donation there and can request either the CD or the DVD from Karen.

After Karen Loritts delivered her message at the True Woman Conference, our team caught up with her for some follow-up questions. We wanted to know how she could decide to trust God when circumstances seemed so unbearable.

Karen: For me there was no other option but to trust God. I have seen God come through in all areas, all parts of my life. And God's my life. I couldn't go to a book; there was no self-help book, no talk show host that I wanted to listen to. I listened to God and laid everything out to Him. He's a trustworthy God, and I was relying upon that.

Throwing in the towel is easy to do. I've been there. I think that's the cheap way. Christ paid a price for my salvation, the ultimate price. And He stuck in there and gave me salvation. As a believer, it costs us something to follow God. The easy thing to do is just walk away.

It says a lot about my belief and trust in God, but He's able to do that. All things are possible with God. It's worth it; it's hard; it's long-suffering, but in the long run, it’s more beneficial.

Nancy: Karen Loritts has seen the value of older women teaching younger women.  She saw it as a young girl, and she’s seen it in action at the True Woman conferences. Karen explains why she’s been part of the counter-revolution that the True Woman conferences represent.

Karen: I think True Woman is a revolution, like Nancy talks about. It is so important today because we are being bombarded. Our culture is just doing a job on our families, on women and men. I believe the True Woman Conference, that God may use this to usher in revival. I believe our country needs a ground swell of people that will be onboard with the truth of God and believe Him. I believe that will set the stage for the Holy Spirit to just come through our homes and communities and churches in America and throughout the world. God is willing an ready to do that, but it's going to take a true woman of God to usher, to help God to do that.

A true woman, when she signs the Manifesto, is saying, "I  believe what God says to me as a woman, what a wife looks like, what a mom looks like." All the Scriptures that back up the Manifesto is just Bible. But when you put your name to it and you sign it, you're saying, "I agree with what God says about me as a woman and His creation."

I think when women start realizing that they are making the decision to live by what the Manifesto says, then I think there is going to be a lot of break throughs. There will be a lot of freedom in trusting themselves to God, to live a life that is biblical and is right.

No matter what the world thinks, they're going to say, "These women have a backbone. They stand for something that is right." I believe it will shake up some people. There's going to be a big ground swell in communities that have the truth of God's Word carried out in all of the areas of our lives.

Nancy: That’s Karen Loritts.

The apostle Paul gives a warning to the dangers weak women face. If that phrase, “weak women” makes you a little nervous, I hope you’ll listen when Mary Kassian digs into the Bible and explores what that means. That’s tomorrow, here on Revive Our Hearts.

Mary Kassian:  Girlfriends, in your struggle against sin, the victory will be won or lost on the battlefield of your mind.

Nancy has written a whole book about the lies women believe, and many of you in this room are here and you are believing lies.

Lies about God, like "God's ways are too restrictive."

Lies about yourself, like "I shouldn't have to live with unfulfilled longings."

Lies about sin, like "This sin really isn't all that bad."

Lies about your circumstances, like "It's not my fault. My circumstances are responsible for my bad attitude. If my husband wouldn't be so mean, I wouldn't be so crabby."

Lies about your priorities, about marriage, about children, about who you are as a woman, about who you are and how you ought to behave.

Lies, lies, lies. Satan is the father of lies. He is a good liar. And our foremother Eve fell for a lie, and the propensity to fall for them has plagued women ever since.

Do you know how the FBI trains secret service agents to identify counterfeit money? They put them in a room with real money. And for hours and hours and hours, they study the details of the real thing, and they feel it, and they smell it. And they become so familiar with real money that when they come across counterfeit money, they just know, "Hmm, something's off, not quite right. It's not quite the right texture." And they can pick it out, what's wrong.

They don't pick out what's wrong by studying the bad stuff. They pick it out by becoming familiar with the good stuff. And it's the same way with us; it's the same way with us. In order to combat falsehood, we need to become intimately familiar with truth. We need the Word. This is truth. This is truth, and if we aren't getting it into our systems, if we aren't feeling it and handling it and reading it and studying it and becoming a familiar with the texture and the feel of it, we're not going to know when something else is kind of off.

But if we're familiar with truth, when Satan comes along with a lie . . . and those lies always have some truth to them, otherwise we wouldn't fall for them. They're just off a little bit. And when Satan comes along with a lie, we'll be able to know, "Hmm, something's not quite right here. Something's not quite right."

Leslie: That's tomorrow here on Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.