Now, let’s see what else Jesus requires besides us asking for His help. In one way, everything Jesus has for you is free; in another way, it takes a type of spiritual “money” to get His help. Just like in the illustration about getting a huge rock removed for one hundred dollars, Jesus has a price He wants you to pay for His help. The spiritual “money” He requires of us all is FAITH. The main difference in this spiritual “money” is, you get it for free from Jesus. You can’t earn it, deserve it, steal it, trade for it, or demand it.

You may have heard a lot of definitions for the word “faith.” You may think it is like blindly jumping off of a cliff and expecting God to catch you. You may assume that it requires mindless trust or factless hope. One of the first things you need concerning faith is to understand God’s definition for it.

Suppose you don’t trust your neighbor with the tractor. You may see them as a crook or someone who would take advantage of you. As long as you don’t trust them, that is going to be one of your main reasons for not asking for their help.

If you don’t trust Jesus, then you won’t be able to enter into a faith relationship with Him. If you don’t believe He is willing to help you, you probably won’t ask Him for help. If you don’t think He is trustworthy, you won’t have faith in Him. If you don’t believe in His honesty, integrity, generosity, and love, you will refuse to believe in Him; and, if you don’t believe in Him, you won’t ask for His help.

If you fear Jesus might help you but do it in a way you won’t like, you won’t ask for His help. If you fear it might cost you too much to get His help, you will refuse to ask for His help. You need to ask Him for His help; but, you can start by asking Him to help you trust Him. Your first “ask” request may need to be one where you ask Jesus to help you see some very important things about Him.

In this study, Jesus will be helping you look at a lot of promises and provisions that He is offering you. The Bible will be telling you about all kinds of wonderful things Jesus says He has done for you and is going to do for you. If you put your faith in those words, you will simply be believing that He is telling you the truth. The challenge is being able to trust Jesus; you and Jesus have to do some things together so you will trust Him.

One of the main issues that offends God is for you to think He is lying to you. If you say something to someone and they basically act like you told them a lie, it offends you. It attacks your integrity and undermines your honesty. It is hard to be friends with someone who acts like you are a dishonest person; that’s the way God feels.

Heb 11:6 (NIV) And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. God is totally perfect and doesn’t allow any dishonesty, lying, cheating, or stealing into His character. He is totally pure and, therefore, deserves our faith, trust, and respect. But, you can struggle with believing in anyone other than your opinions, your trust in yourself, and your evaluation of each and every situation. You can believe you are the only one who has your best interest in mind; you can believe you love yourself the most; and, you can believe all decisions about you must be run through your reasoning first.