God's Steadying Hand
WRITER: Phil Bray POSTED: October 21, 2024
Do you ever grow weary in the slog that is the Christian life? You want so badly to please the Lord, to obey His instructions and live by faith. Yet, day after day you find yourself fighting on the same fronts. The ground before you is a charnel house of failures, sorrow, consequences, repentance, and confession. You know that Christ forgives your sin when you confess it to Him (1 John 1:9), but your life feels like a war ravaged battle field and you are struggling with fatigue. Will it ever end? Will you ever put this sin to death once and for all or will it simply wear you down to the point you stumble and fall beyond recovery?
Jude 24 is so encouraging, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,”! Do you see how the Lord Jesus is depicted? He is the God who is able to keep you from stumbling. He is the God who is able to put a steadying hand upon your life and prevent you from stumbling into moral ruin! He is able to restrain your heart from pursuing sin to its deadly end. Like a parent hovering over a toddler first learning to walk, our Lord hovers at our right hand gently steadying our walk through this world lest we fall. He keeps us! He holds us, restraining us from sinful abandon.
When Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife so that king Abimelech took her into his harem God immediately approached the king in a dream. The Lord revealed to the king that Sarah was a married woman and that he was about to die in consequence. Abimelech quickly protested his innocence, claiming that Abraham had said she was his sister. Listen to God’s response, “Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.” (Gen 20:6). God prevented Abimelech from having sex with Sarah. How did God do this? We do not know. He may have changed his mood, made him sick, caused him to be distracted or forgetful. We are not told. The point is that God in His sovereignty has the power and freedom to prevent us from engaging in sin to our own destruction.
He prevents us from stumbling. By steadying our lives He enables us to stand in His presence blameless and filled with great joy! God is with you my friend! You are weary of the fight against sin. He will keep you. He will not cast you aside (John 6:37). He will not allow you to stumble into irrecoverable ruin. He will prevent you from sinning and enable you to overcome sinful habits and patterns so that you stand before Him on the last day blameless and filled with joy! Remember Paul’s words as you live by faith, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me” (Gal 2:20).
Jude 24 is so encouraging, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,”! Do you see how the Lord Jesus is depicted? He is the God who is able to keep you from stumbling. He is the God who is able to put a steadying hand upon your life and prevent you from stumbling into moral ruin! He is able to restrain your heart from pursuing sin to its deadly end. Like a parent hovering over a toddler first learning to walk, our Lord hovers at our right hand gently steadying our walk through this world lest we fall. He keeps us! He holds us, restraining us from sinful abandon.
When Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife so that king Abimelech took her into his harem God immediately approached the king in a dream. The Lord revealed to the king that Sarah was a married woman and that he was about to die in consequence. Abimelech quickly protested his innocence, claiming that Abraham had said she was his sister. Listen to God’s response, “Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against Me; therefore I did not let you touch her.” (Gen 20:6). God prevented Abimelech from having sex with Sarah. How did God do this? We do not know. He may have changed his mood, made him sick, caused him to be distracted or forgetful. We are not told. The point is that God in His sovereignty has the power and freedom to prevent us from engaging in sin to our own destruction.
He prevents us from stumbling. By steadying our lives He enables us to stand in His presence blameless and filled with great joy! God is with you my friend! You are weary of the fight against sin. He will keep you. He will not cast you aside (John 6:37). He will not allow you to stumble into irrecoverable ruin. He will prevent you from sinning and enable you to overcome sinful habits and patterns so that you stand before Him on the last day blameless and filled with joy! Remember Paul’s words as you live by faith, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me” (Gal 2:20).