Jeremiah 17:5-10 “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
In verse 10, the Lord makes it clear that His response in giving is in accordance to the activities of man; “his ways” and “his doings.” While it may be a hard pill to swallow, you determine whether you are barren or blessed! When one begins to study the link between the state of being barren or blessed, it lies in the word “trusteth.” The word means to attach oneself, to trust, confide in, feel safe, to be confident or secure to the point of being careless. God through the pen of Jeremiah reveals that there are only two areas in which man seeks security or places their confidence; self, “trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm” or the Sovereign, “trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.” This confidence is in one or the other; to trust one is to reveal distrust for the other.
Jeremiah describes an element of humanity that has turned aside and forsaken the Lord with confident expectations that the strength, power and might of the creature, is sufficient to meet any need. God declares them to be “cursed.” The word means to bind with a spell, to hem in with obstacles, to render powerless, and to resist. God declares the results to be synonymous to a tree that has been demolished and made bare while abiding permanently in a sun-burnt, uninhabited land marked by sterility, void of the awareness of God’s delightful fruitfulness for all that will come to Him.
Jeremiah describes an element of humanity that has turned to the Lord as their only hope while placing no confidence in the abilities of the first Adam. God declares them to be “Blessed” and says that they are synonymous to tree that has been rooted and transplanted in the proximity of a spring of water that results in spreading their roots about the river so as to never lack for sufficiency, making it possible for their leaves to always remain green and its fruit to be plentiful, even in the most adverse times.
You are either a man of the flesh or a man of faith; one means being barren, the other means being blessed! The choice is determined by whom one “trusteth.”