Note: Today is the fifth day of Covid recovery for me and the first day in a week I have the strength to write again.
“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,” (Jude 1:24).
We can place all our confidence on “Him.” He is Jesus, our Lord Who began the good work in us. “Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” (Philippians 1:6). Jesus will not allow anyone or anything to steal us from Him. “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.” (John 10:28) Even if it is our own careless and lazy selves that move our hearts away from Him, He is there with us, loving us and guarding us. Only at our rejection will He loosen us to live how we want, without Him.
But Jude tells us He is able to keep us from falling. We don’t have to strive and struggle in our own inability to be righteous. We cannot do it. What we have to do is surrender. Surrender our all to Him, our high ideals, our desires, our wants, our way of doing things, our dreams, visions of “our” future, the results of anything we work on, our bodies and our souls (mind, will and emotions). “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:1-2) There is where the struggle is. It’s hard for us to let go. But when we made Jesus our Lord and Savior, our pledge was to let go. That was our part of the agreement, part of the pact or the covenant we made with the Lord. The Lord has kept His part. We must now keep our part.
This is the lifelong struggle we have because we always want to go back on our agreement with the Lord. We forget first of all that He is with us and in us. We forget Him. We move without Him. We make decisions without Him. We confess and renew our surrender to Him and the next minute we do what we want, again. In this age of grace, we act without sense and do things the people of other dispensations would never do. The consequences were too great. But we take our liberty too carelessly and indifferently without realizing the great price our Lord gave for us. We are flippant with sin, forgetting that it cost the Lord Jesus, His suffering and His blood. Jesus did it so we could be free of the hold of sin on us, and we could live righteously. “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
(1Peter 2:24)
There are two aspects to this. There is the child of God struggling with this “self” to follow the Lord. And there is the one who has given in totally to self and sins willingly thinking God will forgive or has already forgiven me. Let’s look at the latter. We wonder if this person did sincerely surrender to the Lord. They may have said the words, wanted to believe what they said, but their continual disobedience and rejection of the Lord is evident in their deeds. “Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” (1John 3:6-8) It’s plain as day they don’t belong to the Lord.
Then there is the one with whom we may all identify. They have made that pledge with the Lord to surrender all to Him. But they are struggling daily with self. It’s a real struggle and we will have this struggle until we die. But the difference between the two people is that one prefers to give in self, to sin and to the flesh than to surrender. The other one, the one we identify with, hates the struggle, turns to the Lord for help and most times has the victory. But sometimes we fall, not because we want to, but because we are maturing, and the struggle has become stronger. As we get nearer to Jesus, treasure more of His Word in our heart and our minds, repent and continue with the Lord. Paul said something about this. “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.” (Romans 7:15-16) No matter if one is anointed to preach, we all struggle with our flesh and sin.
Check your heart. If you hate the sin and struggle to have victory over it, this is the normal process of sanctification. When we confess this sin the Holy Spirit has revealed and repent of it, we will have victory over it. (1John 1:9) But if we revel in sin, give in to it and willfully return to it continually, then you are deceived and don’t belong to Jesus. (1John 3: 6-8) We should be able to look back every day and see how far we’ve come, but not in our own strength, but with the help of the Lord. He is the One Who keeps us from falling when we lean and depend on Him. And at the end of this age, with joy He will present us faultless in the presence of His glory.
Comments