.... kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation

I don't know how long it has been for me to have struggled as hard as I have this week with sexual temptation. This as I prepare to give two sermons on Biblical human sexuality. The Lord however just this morning reminded me of the words in the title of this post from I Peter 1:5.  He was reminding me that He is the one who keeps us.

Thayer says of the word translated here 'kept” that it means 'by watching and guarding to preserve one for the attainment of something' in this case,  in context,  our salvation.  It is through faith – active trust and reliance upon Him,  rather than our own will power and ability to endure.  This reliance on Him does not come naturally to our rugged self reliant  North American individualism.  However until we come to the end of ourselves all we have is ourselves and whether we know it or not, “ourselves”  is not enough because “in many things we all fail”.

The first three steps of any twelve step program dictate the acknowledgment that we cannot manage our own lives, a realization that we need our “higher power” and a  decision to turn our lives over to God (as we understand Him).  I need to say a word about this.  It should be clear that truth is important, but that not everybody is ready to swallow the whole of orthodox Christian teaching. It took me some time to get where I am (see my profile). What I do want to say is that I know of nowhere else than the Bible where we are promised that “If the Son shall set you  free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). 

The context of the 1 Peter quote also makes it clear that we tap into His keeping power by placing our trust in Him (i.e. through faith). I have discovered that I cannot keep myself. In the words of the hymn writer I am “prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love”.  We (I) are (am) far too easily seduced by the deceitfulness of sin that promises joy. But such joy  is short term, and it costs us. The Bible talks about the pleasure of sin “for a season”.  The joy sin promises is fleeting and leads us into bondage.  I have learned to pray that part of the Lord's prayer  - “lead me away from temptation” (Matthew 6:13) at the very first hint of temptation.

Do you pray for yourself regularly (every day), to be (continue to be) delivered from your addictions?  I do, I am painfully aware that I need His power in my life on an ongoing basis  in order to remain faithful to Him. When I am weak and cry out to Him and cast it all on Him, I become strong in Him because He keeps me.

 There is no other way to fly!  The same context of 1 Peter 1:5 (i.e. verse 6) tells us of the resulting joy that even brings us through trials. This only comes however with absolute surrender. In the words of the big book of AA “half measures availed us nothing”.