Trust the Lord, Always

The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself.

(2 Timothy 2:11-13)

Jesus willingly offered himself up, died, and was buried, taking all of my sins and yours with him to the cross. When I was baptized, I was symbolically buried with Christ in the grave. Since he rose from the grave, I too rise from the grave when I came up out of the waters of baptism. Now his Spirit lives in me and I in him. I came up from my baptism a new creation. I can see no better alternative for my life than to live in Christ Jesus.

Along with my salvation came some trials. Some of my old friends have shunned me and I have had to turn my back on still others who wanted me to return to my old ways. There have been other trials both trivial and extremely painful that I have had to endure. My reward for bearing with those circumstances will really come in the hereafter, when I will reign with him for eternity. That’s not to say I haven’t been blessed in the here and now. It just means my blessing in heaven will be so much greater than what I have received here, there will be no comparison.

The flip side of endurance would be to deny Jesus when I’m challenged by my own unbelief. Satan will pull out all the stops to get me to deny Christ. He accuses me before God telling him every sin I commit. Because I haven’t denied him, Jesus defends me before God. If I have denied Jesus, then why would he feel compelled to defend me? That would be like telling my defense attorney I have no confidence in him and firing him in the middle of a trial. The consequence of denying him is, Jesus will deny me before our ultimate judge, the Father.

There are times when our faith will fail because of our weakness, but he always will be faithful. Even if your backsliding is awful and severe, it’s not too late to repent and come back to him until the day you die. Although, it’s definitely not advisable to put off your decision to repent. He cannot fail you because he is infallible and all loving. He is incapable of being faithless. To do that would be to deny himself and that would be denying his very existence.

Father God it’s impossible to adequately praise you for your trustworthiness. We, on the other hand, fail you every day, but we can trust you to forgive us, even though we only deserve your scorn. When we rise from the waters of baptism, the old has passed and we are a new creation. We have died to ourselves and now live for Christ. We ask for, and lean on, the strength of Jesus, to withstand the attacks of all the evil in this world. We thank you, Lord, for your promise to reign with you if we endure. Give us your Spirit to guide us through all the temptations to reject you and seek our own way. Forgive us, Lord, when we lose faith and fail to remember who our God and King is. You are always faithful to bring us back into the fold when we turn from our unfaithfulness. We never have to worry if you are going to be trustworthy in your dealings with us, because you can be nothing else. We pray this in the most precious name, the name above all names, Jesus Christ. Amen!