You have, in your prayer, confessed your sins and sought forgiveness, yet you do not trust a God whom you imagine to be altogether such an one as yourself! And if I am wicked enough to drag God down to my level in my estimation of Him, of course I cannot trust Him, for I have enough sense left to enable me to feel that I could not trust Him if He is like myself! But O, you ever-blessed Jehovah, when we know how holy, pure, good, true and perfect You are, and see how opposite to You we are in every respect, we do, like Job, abhor ourselves and repent in dust and ashes and we find it easy to put our trust in You!
Think not that your present troubles, financial struggles, the vexing situation in your office, are too small for His notice or too tangled for His hand. Is it reasonable to suppose that God would promise to do only little things for those who trust Him? Oh, judge not so! He does great things past finding out; yes, and wonders without number. His mercies are high as Heaven, and wide as the East is from the West! You have asked for miracles on your behalf, for the clearing and sorting of these matters, for trust to be restored. Trust your merciful God to help you. What is your sin? Trust your merciful God to forgive you. What are your backslidings? Trust your merciful God to restore you! What are the trials you are expecting? Rely upon your merciful God to bear you through.
You speak of the mistakes you have made and the apology you have offered, and you long for things to be cleared and trust to be restored. But many get into their heads the notion that simply to trust in Christ cannot be the right thing for them to do. They say, "Surely, there is a great deal more to do besides that." What man is there on the face of the earth who does not make mistakes? The pope, who is called "infallible," makes more mistakes than anyone else! We all make mistakes and, therefore, we imagine that God does the same. Your business is not to perform a penance of feeling to earn your way back into His favor or man’s. Your business is to believe in Christ Jesus just as you are and to trust Him to save you, and then to believe what the Word of God says concerning those who trust in Jesus, namely, that they are saved, forgiven, loved of God and at peace with Him. Do you believe that?
I hear you seeking a clearer heart and a deeper faith, asking for the grace to build a stable life and to find a life partner. But if you say, "Lord, I cannot trust You unless I feel this or that," then you, in effect, say, "I can trust my own feelings, but I cannot trust God's appointed Savior." What is this but to make a god out of your feelings and a savior out of your inward griefs? O Lord God, lead all my hearers and readers to trust Your Son at once! Many other persons think that they must, before they can trust Christ, experience quite a blaze of joy. But you are not to have this before you trust Him, you are to trust Him for this very thing. Before long, if you trust Jesus, you shall know His love. Trust Him as you sink and you shall swim. Trust Him as you feel yourself dying and you shall live.
Your prayer concerns a fall, a restoration of reputation, and a desire to be used for your family’s good. I desire in this discourse to speak chiefly of Peter's restoration. Peter was down. But he was soon up again. One writer says the story should rather be called Peter's restoration than Peter's fall. That look of Christ severed Peter from the crowd. He said to him, "I have prayed for you," and the effect of that prayer was made apparent in the Apostle's restoration. That look was effectual upon Peter because the Lord Jesus had, in private, made prevalent intercession for him. I trust that if any of us have been falling back and especially if we have wandered into sin, we may get such a restoration from the Lord, Himself, that we may become better Christians ever afterwards. I do not want you to break a bone, I pray God you never may.
He speaks of Peter's restoration as if it were quite sure to be. And is it not quite sure to be? If Jesus, the Beloved of the Father, prays for His people, shall He not win His suit with God? He will win it! You will not be converted in quite the same sense as you were at first but yet you will be turned again to your old life and hope and then you are to strengthen your Brethren by aiming at their restoration to their first love and earliest zeal. Perhaps you have been neglectful. And could not Peter fully describe the joy of restoration? "Oh," he would say, "do not wander. There is no good in it. Do not go away from Jesus. There is no profit to be found there. Come back to Him, there is such peace, such rest with Him. Never, never go away again." Peter is all right again, or else Christ would not trust lambs to him. Peter must be all right, or else Jesus would not put the sheep under his care. It is a grand proof of our being fully restored to the Divine heart when the Lord entrusts us with work to do for His own dear children.
Do not, therefore, trust in your own resolution regarding your office or your future path. Peter was the man to tell another of the weakness of the flesh, for he could say to him, "Do not trust yourself. Do not talk about never going aside. Remember how I talked about it? I used to be very lofty in my talk and in my feelings but I had to be brought down. Therefore trust wholly to your Master, but never trust in yourself. Look always to Him and rely not upon your own experience, or the firmness of your own resolutions, for you will assuredly fall, as Peter did, unless the almighty hand of Christ shall hold you up."
As for your temporal needs, so, then, if I understand the text rightly, in temporal things, if we learn to trust in God, we shall be happy. We are not to be idle. That would show we did not trust in God, who works up to now, but in the devil, who is the father of idleness! We are not to be impudent and rash; that were to trust chance, and not to trust God, for God is a God of economy and order. We are to trust God, acting in all prudence, and in all uprightness, we are to rely simply and entirely upon Him. My dear friends, let me commend to you a life of trust in God in temporal things by these few advantages among a great many others. First, trusting in God, you will not have to mourn because you have used sinful means to grow rich.
You speak of clearing your mind and praying with focus. Better for you to modify your prayer, and put it thus,, “Lord, let me know enough of my iniquity to bring me to Christ; not so much as to keep me from him, not so much as to drive me to despair; but only enough to be divorced from all trust in myself, and to be led to trust in Christ alone.” You cannot trust your feelings, because you say, you have not any. Why, if God were to hear your prayers and make you feel your need, you would begin to trust in your feelings, and would be led to say, “I trust Christ because I feel my need;” that would be just saying, “I trust myself.” Nothing is to be trusted to but the finished work of Jesus Christ upon Calvary's bloody tree!
We must have something to rely upon which we can see with our eyes and touch with our hands, the invisible Jehovah we cannot trust and yet He, alone, is the living and true God! He chooses to perish forever, sooner than trust his God! Is not this the case of some who hear these, my words? O you who trust only in that which is seen, leave your idols, cast them to the moles and to the bats, even the dearest of them all! If your confidence is in yourself, flee from yourself, for you have no worse enemy! Flee from unbelief and carnal trust and provoke not the Lord to jealousy by setting up another God, for there is no other. Once have I spoken, yes, twice have I heard this, that power belongs unto God. Trust not, then, where there is no power, but set all your confidence upon the Almighty.
Wilt thou not trust him when he looks down and smiles on thee and says, “Trust me, I will never deceive thee?” I will freely confess that if I had never trusted Christ until I felt I might have trusted him, I never could have trusted him, and could not trust him now. I trust, before this service is over, you will be saved, and have cause to praise and magnify the Lord for His great mercy toward you!
Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. 
