Dear Weekly Readers! God’s
Peace!
Thank you for your many prayers as my wife and I have traveled
about doing work in the Lord’s Vineyard here in the USA!
We are safely home now and I am happy to share more of God’s
Word with you on a regular basis!
Please enjoy the below article!
May God Bless your Week! John R.
"...KEPT BY THE POWER OF GOD THROUGH FAITH..."
(1 Peter 1:5)
(1 Peter 1:5)
This brief phrase
is taken from several verses in this first epistle of Peter in which the
Apostle is encouraging the persecuted believers in an area of the world that we
know today as Asia. Please read this
entire passage from 1 Peter 1:1-9 wherein Peter is encouraging these brothers
and sisters in faith to hold fast to the Lord knowing that through the
resurrection of the of the Lord Jesus Christ, they would receive an inheritance
that is imperishable, undefiled, and eternal.
As I thought about
this phrase of being "kept by the power of God through faith," I
began to think about faith. What do we
really mean when we use this word? The
main meaning, I believe, is that of entrusting ourselves whole-heartedly into
God's hands. The Apostle Paul stated it
most clearly in his second epistle to Timothy:
"...I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day" (2 Tim. 1:12).
Our Lord, a while
before he was to be crucified, counseled his disciples to "believe in
him" (Jn. 14:1). Several times during their discipleship
training, Jesus chided them for their "little faith" or "lack of
faith." (Mt. 6:30, 8:26, 14:31, 16:8, 17:20). Are we any different? We sing and say we believe, but do we
truly? Since God has always proved
himself faithful, why do we not always trust him?
There are several
reasons why we do not trust God.
Probably the chief reason we do not is due to our carnal nature. Our faith is not in God, but in
ourselves. We rely upon our own
abilities, strength, wisdom, capabilities, etc.
Added to this way of thinking, we have been taught and encouraged to
rely upon other sources and resources-- our employment, pastors, counselors,
the government, technology, doctors, lawyers, etc, I suspect we have become so
accustomed to these and others means of handling life's issues, we take little
notice of our need for the Lord. Yes, we
believe in him for our salvation, but what about for everything else? Yes, in times of storms, turmoil, dangers,
severe illness, economic collapse, destruction of dwellings, and other
disasters, we call out of fear and desperation to God. Yet when the causes have passed, we return to
our old ways. In effect, we have done as
did Israel in the days of Jeremiah. They
had forsaken the fountain of living water and hewn out for themselves fountains
that hold no water (Jer. 2:13).
Faith in God is to
be a constant, consistent, daily trust.
In effect, it is an act of resignation.
After all, no matter what the situation or circumstances of life, we are
not capable of handling it. We tend to
being stressed--mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. The faithful who are described in the Epistle
to the Hebrews, chapter eleven, are examples to us of how faith is to
function. God has called us to dying to
ourselves. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his
book, The Cost of Discipleship, states that when Jesus calls us to
follow him, he bids us to die. When the
Apostle Paul wrote in Rom. 6:6 that "our
old man is crucified with Christ", it means that we are no longer to
function by the powers, ingenuity, and abilities of our carnal nature. It is in Christ that "we live and
move and have our being" (Acts
17:28).
Surrendering our
own independence and resigning ourselves into God's hands is not our natural
desire. We have inherited this carnal
attitude from Adam and Eve which they thought was independence; it is not
independence, but slavery. Jesus, alone,
is the One who can break our bonds of sin and death. Only through the Holy Spirit's power working
through the Word of God can we be taken captive by the Lord wherein and whereby
we will have true freedom. Though our
heart is changed to love, honor, and obey God, the battle still goes on between
the spirit and the flesh. May we
honestly and truly repent of our self-centered rebellion and rejection of the
Lord's loving, merciful, total care of us, and yield our whole body, soul, and
spirit to our One True Lord! God help us
to trust him always and ever!
Pr. Wayne Juntunen
