God's Ability to Protect and Keep

This week I was struck in a fresh way with the Apostle Paul's words in II Timothy 1:12 -

"...But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what I have entrusted to him."

When the Holy Spirit quickened this word to me, it was a wonderful reminder of God's keeping power. It also reminded me once again that the promise to guard is directly related to "that which I have entrusted to him until that Day."

There are three words/phrases in this verse that I want to focus on:

1. Convinced that He is able - Paul's faith and certainty about God was founded on His experiential knowledge of the nature and character and works of God; he had utmost certainty about His power and ability to perform the impossible.
   
2. Guard/protect - the meaning of the word here includes the idea of a fixed gaze on the situation ("a watch; to guard from loss or injury"). Paul not only knew that God was almighty and able to intervene for humans but that He wanted to. This desire to help is reflected in the fixed attention that He gives those of us who are His own. He is not disinterested.
   
3. Entrust - this word carries the idea of a "deposit". Paul understood that God's ability to actually guard and protect specific issues on behalf of His own was contingent upon his "depositing" that situation in Him; in other words, leaving it in His care.
   

One thing I love about God is His unbelievable desire to be and work with humans. He, the almighty One Who can do anything without help from outside Himself, is such a God of love that there are things He won't do without human companionship/partnership!

So my simple encouragement to you and to myself is to take the time to study and meditate on the character and the works of God so that faith grows in us; the more we focus our attention on the beauty and the power of God (Psa. 63:2), the more faith grows and we become increasingly "convinced that He is able". Practical ways of studying and meditating on His power are to meditate on Scriptures that talk about His great works on behalf of His people in Bible history, to reflect back on His powerful interventions in our own lives and the lives of others that we know, to worship and thank Him for His greatness and power, to sing about His wonders, and to give testimony to others of His great works. All of this offsets the massive lies of the evil one related to God's inability and/or lack of desire to intervene and to handle a difficult situation.

As our inner life is being fed truth and light, it becomes easier to believe that God can "guard that particular issue/person/ministry from loss or injury," and once we can really believe that He is not only able to do this but wants to do it, then "depositing" the matter at His feet becomes an outflow of trust in One Who has proven Himself trustworthy, not only in my personal life but in every human being's life in all of history.

If I have a large sum of money that I want to be protected from loss or thievery, I entrust it to the bank down the street rather than hide it under my mattress. That's because I know some things about the bank that empower me to entrust my money to them rather than try to protect it myself. This illustration isn't perfect because a bank can be robbed, but the point is that I have faith that the local bank can do a much better job of guarding my money than I can; and so I "entrust" it to them. That means I must let it go; I can't hide it under my mattress and deposit it in the bank at the same time.

And so in very practical issues of life, whenever a little (or big) fear clutches at my heart, I need to acknowledge that I don't have what it takes to protect that which I fear losing; then I must look once again at the One Who is able to guard it. This awakens true faith in me, and I can redeposit it (as many times as is necessary) to His safety box where it is kept from loss or injury through faith in both His desire and in His ability to fulfill what He has promised.

Often we fall into the temptation to think that we care more about the things and people God has entrusted to us in this life than He does, and when we do, we hold onto them tightly for fear of loss. When we do this, God is not able to guard them. The Apostle Paul understood that the only safe place for anything he had been given was in God's hands. This can be scary because it means we step back and only engage the situation as the Spirit directs us, taking the "risk" that God might not come through the way we want Him to. However, as our eyes are increasingly fixed on Him and faith grows, we find that His ways are much higher and better than ours.

One last observation...the Apostle Paul says that God will guard all that we deposit in Him until the final Day! So this isn't a promise just for the moment but is long-term. What a God!

Lord, right now I redeposit into Your heavenly bank that which you have given to me to steward in this life. I look at You and Your long history of doing wonders for Your people and it inspires faith in me to lay these issues at Your feet again and again for You to guard and to bring to fulfillment. I acknowledge once again that You care infinitely more about that which You've given me than I could ever care about. Forgive me for wrongly "owning" that which came from You in the first place and thereby accusing You of not caring as much as I do. I love Your ways, dear Lamb and Lion of God!

The Lord bless you this week and fill you with the knowledge of His goodness and control over your life and all that He has given to you.